Salvation Was Just A Passing Thought
by crazyrTHANu882
Summary: Kushi Zhuul, is an art theif, plain and simple, not when a dead boyfriend, art theif society, reincarnations, and the Host Club is thrown into the mix. OCXOC Warning: Contains major traces of yaoi, slash, or boyXboy
1. Thought 1

crazy: Alright, I'm going to say this now, and I'll put it in bold especially for those people that are stupid and don't read the summary just cause it doesn't look pretty.

**_Warning: THIS IS SLASH, THAT MEANS YAOI, GAY, HOMOSEXUAL, OR BOYXBOY, IN OTHER WORDS, DON'T LIKE, DON'T READ._**

Ok, now you can't say I didn't warn you, so I don't want flames about how gay characters are gross just because you didn't read the frickin warning when I put it in both the summary and here and it was in bold, italic, and capital letters just for you.

And now, the following fanfiction you are about to enjoy includes the following, but not limited to, gay guys, theives, stolen art, girly boys, boyish girls, a zombie(?), some bible references, angst, cutting, and a snake.

* * *

I laid there in the grass, my heart hurting too much for it to be possible to still be alive, and yet, by some cruel twist of fate, I still was.

Tell me God, why do you hate me?

Why did you take the love of my life from me?

Why have you stolen my salvation?

Or was that just a passing fancy of yours, to play with my life?

Why did he die?

...:Two Months Later:...

'Wow, it looks just like back home, only he's not here.'

I looked around the over crowded airport, that reminded me so very much of New York, the apple of my eye, the city I was born and raised in, Mother, why did you send me to a country in which I don't even know the language?

Was my own mother's idiocy an example of what I would become in the near future, nah, I mean I skipped a grade level, I'm gonna be a high school freshman, again, when I'm fifteen, wait, shit, I'm going to be a freshmeat again, I didn't think this would happen.

I suddenly looked around, remembering I was supposed to be looking for a person that would be waiting for me, I was expecting a cardboard sign with my name on it that a hobo would be holding, so I was rather surprised to see a good looking blond holding the sign. I looked around, just to make sure it wasn't someone else for they were holding the sign, wait, who the heck would have such a weird name, really, was there even anyone else, in Japan at least, with that name?

I cautiously walked over to the blond, I was already shatting bricks, I mean weird country, new language to learn, people, metric system, having to learn how to drive on the **left** side of the road! It was amazing by itself that my sweaty palms didn't leave water trails behind them, and how dry a person's mouth could get so quickly.

"Hi, you must be Kushi Zhuul right?" the blond asked excitedly, to which I nodded my head, rather creeped out by the boy who was already avidly shaking my hand, but the only thought that really registered in my mind was how I hated my name, it was so, ugh, "I am Tamaki Suoh and, what is that?" he asked, pointing at something around my neck.

I poked abesently at what I thought he was pointing at, feeling cool, scaly skin run against the skin of my neck, it went through the sleeve of my jacket until it reached my hand, then curled around my wrist, I lowered the sleeve and saw my baby there, A'laa, a thankfully small, garden snake that I had saved from death at the hands of some neighborhood kids just the previous year, then he wouldn't stop tormenting the house, always finding some way to sneak in, and normally popping out where ever I was, although once he came out in the cereal that my mom had poured for herself one morning, that was a very happy morning, cause it was also the morning that my mom finally decided that I would be able to keep him, so long as he never appeared in her food again.

"A'laa." I answered, holding the, now fast asleep, snake out so the blond could touch his scales, he instead backed off and I shrugged my shoulders before peeling A'laa from my wrist and placing him around my neck, where he was most comfortable, once more.

"Well, since your a transfer student from America, you get to stay at my house while you attend school, and maybe you will go to my club." Tamaki said and babbled on and so forth about how he hoped we would get to know each other well and how he hoped I would also like his friends.

When we suddenly passed a reflective mirror, I stared at my reflection, black shoulder blade length hair kept in a loose, low set, ponytail, dark skin from my parents, we were an Arabic family, my name meant 'living happily' so why wasn't I, shabby clothing, which happened to be my favorite way to dress, comfort over formality as I said, the earrings that my father had bought for me at a pawn shop, the person had told him that they were real onyx, I wouldn't be surprised if they were fake, but I still liked the stud earrings, black rimmed glasses which were kept on my neck by a strap, in case they fell off my face and so I wouldn't lose them, and the glasses also helped to hide my eyes.

I had the eyes of my great, great, great, great, great grandfather, who was said to have been the King of Thieves, so in a way we were nobility, just not the revered and followed by the populace kind. I had also been told I had many other traits of his such as his having a snake for a companion, my feirce sense of justice, if I saw someone being bullied I just could _not_ stop myself from taking the hits for them, or protecting them, my natural hightned senses, which were useful if my mom was coming to see if my room was clean or not, my strength, which normally came out only when I was most angry, and my name, his name was also Kushi, which makes me wonder what his name had been, 'Kushi the Living Happily', not too threatening.

"Kushi-san!"

I switched my head from the reflective window to the blond, well, I could be 'Kushi, the One Actracted to Reflective Surfaces' then I, oh so intelligently responded, "Huh?" really smart for a person with a 6.0 GPA to say.

"Why are you staring at the window?"

"Dunno." I responded after a short period of silence, then I went and walked ahead of him, I could already see the prejudice I would receive, for one, skin, two, smarts, and three, just plain inattentiveness, but I would have endured all that, if only so that he would not have died, that we could still be enjoying ourselves in Central Park, going to Greenwitch and making fun of the tourists, I wondered if at the end of his tunnel it really was just Jersey, or somplace entirely different.

...:Later:...

"Frap."

That was all I could say, I remembered how he used to laugh at what I would say instead of using curse words, but right now, if he was with me, I don't think even he would have laughed, cause it was a huge mansion I was staring at right now.

"I'm sorry you have to stay here with me at the second mansion, but it's just as nice as the first, I think, I've never been there, but my father tells me that it's nice too, although it is bigger." Tamaki said in response to my remark, he probably really wanted to ask what a frap was.

I stared at him in disbelief, this was the _second_ mansion, they had more than one, and the first, was _bigger_, the closest I had ever gotten to see anything huge was the Central Museum, and this was bigger than that! I would love to see what they considered to be the shack among their homes.

"Ok." I responded, staring in disbelief once more at the huge mansion, which appearently wasn't even huge, I wondered what the school would look like.


	2. Thought 2

I sat on the bed comforter, I had already set up A'laa's aquarium, I felt bad that he had to live in a fish aquarium with only a heating lamp, some mulch, and a heating rock which doubled as a water holder, instead of having one of those fancy snake tanks, but he liked it, I once tried to remove the heating rock so I could put in a new one, and did he hiss at me. A'laa does not like his tank to be changed, I switched his rock from being in the corner to the other corner, to make room for a piece of log I thought he would like, he rebelled by not heating himself, and so for his own health I put the rock back in its place and cut the log a bit so it could fit into the tank with the rock in that corner, he ended up actually liking the log a lot.

Right now though, A'laa was still around my neck, out of all the heaters in the world, he liked me the most, some nights, he would refuse to go into his aquarium and instead sleep around my neck, he had very human like qualities. I laid down on the bed and pulled out an old, tattered, paperback from the carry on bag that I had yet to empty, I really could be girly, I was reading Pride & Prejudice.

Barely into the first chapter and already Mr. Darcy is reminding me of him, the way he seems so rude and obstinate, how socially awkward he is, what a great friend he could be, what a good kisser he was, curse you Jane Austen for writing the exact copy of the person I would meet about a hundred or so years after you wrote the book, and curse whatever forces made him die.

...:Next Day, School:...

"So this is the class you will go to, if you need help you should ask either of the twins or Haruhi, I have to get to class, I'll see you later."

Then Tamaki went off to his own class after dropping me off outside my own, I looked once more at what I was wearing, black jacket, black cargo pants, black beanie, black shoes, black wrist bands, and my onyx earrings, for my hair, I had decided to let it loose. Sure people would think I was emo or goth, even though I'm not, but I was still in mourning, I pushed my glasses up a bit then pulled open the door and quickly felt my face heat up a bit with nervousness, he had always said I was adorable when I was nervous.

"Ah, you must be the new student, Kushi Zhuul, right?" the teacher asked, a very light accent on his English, and obviously not happy with having a student like me in his class, maybe it was my age, or the fact that I wasn't in uniform and I was wearing a hat indoors, probably that.

"Yes sir."

"I will allow you to wear your hat today Zhuul, but next time you will receive a detention, is that understood."

"Yes sir."

"It is Kazuka-sensei, not sir."

"Yes si-, I mean, yes Kazuka-sensei."

The teacher made some sort of grimacing smile, and then motioned for me to go to the last seat in the room, I was happy enough with his arrangement, I would be able to space out peacefully without his interfering, I hoped.

...:After Class:...

I sighed heavily, I got the feeling Kazuka-sensei didn't like me, it's just a_ little_ hunch though, because even though there were a lot of hands raised to answer his questions, he constantly picked me, when my hand wasn't even raised and glared at me when my answer was correct, I totally wasn't sure if that meant he hated me, or just didn't like me.

I looked out of the corner of my eye to see a group of guys still stalking me, why were they stalking me, I did not know, but I decided to try and lose them fast. I sped up my walking pace to an almost jog, then a full out run when I remembered something horrible from my past. When I went to school for the first time when I was five, a group of boys started to chase me around the playground during recess, although back then I was confused as to why they did that, I discovered several years later, that they had done that, because they thought I was cute and they liked me.

I did not want to relive the several incidents of being stalked, having people sneak into my house so they could get a lock of my hair, finding out there were cults that revered to me as a sort of deity, the endless rivers of love notes and presents from numerous admirers, and other such incidents that ranged from, pathetically cute, to almost dangerous lunacy.

I quickly snuck into a door, not bothering to check what the room was or if it already had people in it, luckily the stalkers were stupid enough to keep running even though I had disappeared. I took off my glasses as I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes, in both exhaustion and annoyance.

"Kushi, you decided to come to the Host Club!"

My eyes snapped open at the sound of that voice, and before turning around, I remembered having taken off my glasses, and I hurriedly put them back on before turning around to see what appeared to be, some sort of, Arabian court, I think, it looked more like something plucked out of Aladdin.

"What is this?" I asked, finally speaking more than one word to the blond,

"This is the club that I made that I told you about, remember?"

"No." I answered bluntly, and then scratched my head as he went into a little depressed corner, I wondered which was worse, facing the stalkers, or dealing with this guy.

"What were you running from?"

I turned my attention from the blond to a brown eyed, brunette boy, "Stalkers." I replied shrugging my shoulders, then I went over and tripped and crashed onto one of the couches, although I didn't really care that I was currently sitting upside down with my head above the floor and my feet hanging over the back of the couch.

I closed my eyes once more, so pissed off with the world that I didn't even notice my glasses fell off my face and onto the floor, I lifted myself from my lying down position and stared at the people in the room who, for some reason, were staring strangely at me.

Out of mere habit I pushed against my glasses, to discover I was pushing against my nose instead, I froze in that motion, wondering if God would take mercy upon my poor soul and let me wake up to discover that the past two months, one week, four days, twelve hours, and twenty six seconds had all been a very terrible dream. I let my body fall back and ended up whamming my head, _very_ hard against the ground.

"Shat." I stated, using one of my substitute words instead of an actual curse word.

I scrambled to the floor, and as I stood, I instead heard a crunching sound underneath my foot; I lifted said foot and glared at the shimmering pieces of glass on it.

"Darn it!" I shouted, now really upset with myself, for one, having people see my eyes, and two, breaking my glasses myself, my mom would be so very pissed off with me. Since I could no longer hide my eyes with my glasses, I removed my beanie, adjusted my hair, then replaced the beanie to where it had been, 

now my hair completely covered my face, and true, I was rendered somewhat blind, but at least no one would see my eyes.

"Well, I'm leaving now." I said, moving in some direction and immeadiately smacking my shin against a coffee table, "Ow, ok, this time I'm leaving." I smacked in to something else, but I couldn't see what it was.

"Sheesh, you're a very strange girl." a pair of voices announced at the same time, what they said made me immeadiately push my hair out of my face and glare at them, and my glares are always super creepy because of my crimson red eyes.

"What did you call me?" I growled out, already very pissed off with having the color of my eyes being revealed.

"Strange." The red headed and golden eyed twins responded,

"No, the word after that." I corrected

"A girl." The twins wondered why that was important.

"You know, there's a saying about my eyes that was created thanks to my great, great, great, great, great grandfather, it goes like this, 'If your opponent has blood in their eyes, you're going to die.' Just like you two are!" Then I went ahead and charged after them, with murder evident in my eyes.

Unfortunately, before I could reach my destination of ripping out their throats, I was curious to see if those were as identical as their faces, someone lifted me off of the ground and placed me on their shoulder, so that the most damage I could do was pound against their back.

"Why did you attack us?" the twins asked, holding onto each other,

"Sorry, I can't control my temper when a person calls me a girl." I explained, "Maybe I should cut my hair that would probably help." I muttered more to myself.

"Why would you be upset with people calling you a girl?" the brunette asked me, which allowed everyone else to stare at me strangely.

"Surely any male has the right to be upset when unjustly called a female." I replied rather calmly, and then merely smirked as most of them freaked out over having finally realized I was a boy.

I shook my head, wondering what exactly I was still doing on this tall guy's shoulder, "Hey, dude, can I get off now?" I asked the tall guy, still holding me on his shoulder; he carefully let me down, "Thank you."

I turned to stare at Tamaki, whose house I was staying at, "You know, I'm quite sure that in the information that they gave you about me, it defined my gender as being male." I told him, "I'm also sure that most people should be able to remember information such as that, unless they are truly that moronic."

My comment sent the blond to mope in a corner, I raised an eyebrow at his pathetic behavior, "Well then, I'm going off, A'laa must be hungry now, he never did like going more than two weeks without a good mouse." at the mention of his name A'laa slipped out from the top of my jacket, having hidden in a pocket in my shirt the entire day.

"Are you allowed to bring pets to school?" the brunette asked,

"It's not against the rules if you don't get caught." I replied, and pulled my hat deeply over my eyes, making sure they were hidden, "Bye." and with that I exited the room, ready to go back to my current 

residence and mope over my broken glasses, wait, I had another ten pairs packed in my carry on bag, it's a good thing that I always over pack.


	3. Thought 3

"What?"

I didn't even have to look up from my Pride & Prejudice book to know there were three people standing in front of me, I lifted my eyes, just barely, from the dialogue that reminded me of my dearly beloved, to glare at the trio through my thick glasses.

"Kidnap!"

After shouting this the twins grabbed my arms and pulled me along with them somewhere, the brunette, who I was sure I had seen yesterday, I couldn't quite recall, grabbed my bag and book, which had been left behind when the twins kidnapped me, and brought them with him so that I wouldn't have to go back and get them myself.

The second we entered their little room that I had been in the previous day, I was pushed into a dressing room, stripped of my clothes, although I was able to prevent them from taking my wristbands, redressed with new clothes, something was done with my hair, I wasn't quite sure what, and glasses were taken, then replaced on my face, since I refused the contacts that they attempted to place in my eyes.

"It took a while, but he looks good now." one twin said,

"Yeah, now he can actually pass for a guy." the second twin replied, which earned him a glare from me.

I looked at myself in a mirror that was thankfully a few short feet from where I stood, what I saw in the mirror shocked me. I was pretty sure it was me, but it was a me that I had never seen before, one that actually looked good. This me had hair that felt light and looked it too, it was nice and glossy, thinner too, this me was dressed in the school uniform, which admittedly looked kind of strange with my skin tone, but it was expensive, and my glasses, someone gave me different glasses, you could see my eyes, so long as people didn't see my eyes I wouldn't care if I was forced to dye my hair pink.

"Where are my glasses?" I asked, deciding to be nice before I killed them all,

"But you look better without them." the twins responded together.

"I don't care if I look like Mathias Lauridsen without my glasses. I. Want. My. Glasses." I demanded, glowering at them as hard as I could, the eyes seemed to add to the effect because I was positive I saw them shiver.

"Here they are." the brunette handed me my thick lensed glasses, which completely covered my eyes, "But you do look better without them, why do you want to wear glasses so badly?"

I sighed, I didn't really like explaining that reason very much, "Because when I was in kindergarten, I went to an open house at school, everyone's parents were there, someone's mom saw my eyes, she screamed and called me the devil, and now to avoid that happening again I hide my eyes." I stared, uncaring at their sympathetic glances, "Ok, I'm going now." and I turned around and quickly exited the room, or tried to, Tamaki pulled on the collar of my shirt to bring me back.

"Not to worry Kushi, if we can't help you with your eyes, then we will give people a reason not to scream at them, you will become a member of the Host Club!" Tamaki shouted in, what I could only assume to be, a heroic and valiant way.

"What's a Host Club?" I asked, having no idea what he was talking about.

"The Host Club was created to bring happiness to girls by catering to their every wish." he explained in the, again, I can only assume, valiant and heroic way.

"Ah, yeah I don't wanna join this little man whore joint." I replied, then looked at the mirror once more, noticing that my earrings also seemed to have been removed, "Can I have my earrings back?"

"Why, you look even more like a girl with them on?" the twins asked,

"Well that doesn't matter, I'm still in mourning so I need to wear at least something black." I explained.

"So that's why you wear all black, what, are you in mourning for leaving your old country for this one?" they asked in a sarcastic manner.

"No, I'm mourning for an actual person that died only two months ago and whom I loved very much, now give me my dang earrings, my dad gave those to me for my birthday a few years back." I answered, and easily slid the earrings into the holes in my ears once the brunette handed them to me.

"Then wouldn't that person also want you to be happy, to move on and discover the glory of life!" Tamaki told me, holding onto my shoulders; since I still had one earring in my hand I stabbed him with the pointy end of it.

"That sounds like something Lawr would say." I commented, which made the members think that was a friend named Lauren or some other name that started with the word Laur, like Laura.

"What is that?" the brunette asked, pointing at something around my neck.

I removed the scaly item from my neck and wrapped it around my wrist, when the other people saw that it was a snake, they freaked out, the other people meant everyone, minus three people, the tall dude from yesterday, a boy with black hair, grey eyes, and wire frame glasses, and the brunette.

"You already saw A'laa." I said, before turning around and attempting to escape once more, but the twins pinned me down and I was soon forced to stay, with the less thick glasses, truly this is the seventh circle of heck.

...:Later:...

"Wow, Zhuul-san, you have such pretty eyes."

"Are they contacts?"

"Did you get them from your mother, from your father, who?"

I felt nervous, very much so, I didn't really talk to people, before I met Lawr four years ago, I had zero friends, not even people I casually talked with, and I especially disliked that the twins, whose names I learned to be Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin, had stolen my glasses and forced me to wear the pair with the less thick lenses

"Um, well, no, they're my real eyes, not contacts, and they're a very rare family trait, from my great, great, great, great, great grandfather." I replied nervously.

"Ah, really?"

"What did he do?"

"Was he famous?"

"Yes, in a way, he was famous, to the royalty anyway."

"Was he a duke?"

"A prince?"

"A king?"

"No, he was a king, just not by birth, or marriage, it was more by stealing."

"He stole the throne from the king!" they all asked at the same time, now excited.

"No, well, actually yes, but not the king you're thinking of, he was the king of thieves." I said, finally clearing that matter up for them that made that topic end.

"Where in America did you live?"

"What was it like?"

"Why did you transfer all the way over here?"

"I lived in New York, it was nice, and that reason is private sorry." I answered, now starting to get a bit fed up with the questions; I noticed that their drinks were getting low, "Would you like more to drink?" I asked them.

They started to blush for some reason before shaking their heads yes, I started to pour tea for them when one of them suddenly looked very pale as she started at my wrist. I looked at my wrist and noticed that A'laa's head was poking out from underneath the black wrist band I still wore; he was looking around, flicking out his tongue to see if there was anything interesting around.

"Ah, I'm sorry, A'laa must have scared you, don't worry, he's harmless, just a common garden snake." I told the girl, taking A'laa from his place around my wrist so that I could hold him out and show him to the girls.

"Wh-wh-why, d-do you h-have, a snake?" one of them asked, looking extremely scared even though I had just explained that he was harmless.

"Ah, I saved him from being killed by some neighbor kids about a year back; he wouldn't leave me alone after that, so I just kept him." I explained, and suddenly their looks changed from scared and nervous to awe and admiring. I was confused by this, but I decided not to care, I mean, why should what a girl thinks matter to me?

...:Different P.O.V:...

The rest of the Host members, well, just Tamaki really, paid avidly close attention to Kushi as he first started out looking adorable with his nervousness, then adorably agitated, and seemed a bit more along the lines of cutely confused when he brought out his snake.

"Mom, what type do you think he is?" Tamaki asked, he was hanging around his good, bespectacled friend, Kyoya, since he had no customers to attend to at the current time.

"I'm not sure; we can think that up later." Kyoya replied, writing some things down in his clip board about the new member.

Tamaki merely stared at the member, waiting for inspiration to hit.

...:Kushi P.O.V:...

"What, you're fifteen?"

"Yeah, my parents, just to try it out, made the school make me skip second grade and go to third, and it turned out I actually did well, so I just kept on going to school like that, although my parents did consider making me skip fourth grade to see if I was smart enough to be with fifth graders, but I didn't really want to." I explained, my parents always were strange.

"Wow, that's impressive, your parents must be proud."

"Meh, my parents don't care much one way or the other, they just ask me if I want to skip more grades or stay behind and be with my actual age group for once." I shrugged my shoulders, "I care about as much as my parents, but I don't really want to graduate too soon from college, there wouldn't be much for me to do."

"Mmhm, what books do you like Zhuul-san?"

"Ah, well I adore Jane Austen; I've read Pride & Prejudice so many times that I've got most of the book memorized." I answered, why was I doing this, I didn't have to, did I? I mean, it's not like that Tamaki guy is going to kick me out of his house if I don't, is he? Oh my gosh, what if he actually is smarter than he looks, so he would know that I'm thinking that, so he wouldn't kick me out, but he would be expecting me to think that, so he would kick me out to surprise me, or he wouldn't, wait just confused myself.

"Zhuul-san, are you alright?"

"Sorry, concerned about my living conditions." I replied,

"Oh, but aren't you staying at Suoh-samba's house?"

"Well yes, right now anyway, at least until my grandparents finish remodeling their house." I explained,

"You have grandparents here?"

"Yes, but I haven't seen them since I was about four." I wondered what my grandparents would be like now, the only thing I could clearly remember about them were the stories they told me, about how our family was actually a community of thieves working together, to collect and protect some of the world's most valuable pieces of art. As ludicrous as those stories were, I liked hearing about the daring escapades and battles, and my grandparents had told the stories in such a way that it seemed they had lived them out.

"Ah, it must be good to see them after so long."

"Yeah, I guess, I'm kinda nervous about seeing them again in truth." I smiled nervously, this seemed to make the girls blush even more, wow, these girls are really weird.

...:Later:...

"Girls are weird." I said, once the last girl had left and the door was closed, "Well then, I'm off, grandparents want to meet me before I move in with them." I said, standing up from the couch I had been sitting on and walking over to the door, that is, I would have, if not for the fact that a small, uniform wearing, blond headed, bullet knocked me back onto the couch.

"Ne, ne, Ku-chan, do you have any good stories about America?" the small, blond, brown eyed, child looking, high schooler, asked.

"Once upon a time, I found a dead rat, A'laa ate it, he got sick, he got better, the end." I responded quickly, before dropping the, child, creature, thing, on the ground and attempting to hurry out the door. Why have I been so unjustly cursed?!

"Wait, Kushi-san, why did I not know you would be moving into your grandparents so soon after moving into my house?" Tamaki asked me, holding onto my legs so I couldn't escape what I wouldn't give to have a bat with multiple nails impaled on it, and to legally kill him with it.

"It was in my information, do you not know to read your current house mate's information, or are you so ignorant that you never learned to read in the first place?" I questioned, I just wanted to get going, I would feel bad if I was late, and the one other thing that I recalled about my grandparents, was their strictness over punctuality, they would accept no excuse, not even if you got your leg chomped off by some rabid creature.

I hurried out the door, and rushed out of the school, I could **not** be late, I did not enjoy having to do push ups with both my grandparents seated on my back as I knew they would make me do, I remembered they had made me carry all their luggage to and from their room when they came and left, they had a lot of heavy stuff in there for a four year old to carry.


	4. Thought 4

"Eh, what happened to you Kushi-san?"

Instead of answering the idiotic blonds' question, I glared at him before climbing up the stairs and laying down on my bed. My clothes were completely torn and muddy, so the expensive uniform that I had only recently gotten, was already going to the garbage bin, and I did not look nearly half as good as I did a few hours prior to going to that late lunch with my grandparents, really, what type of grandparents make their grandchild fight an entire group of gangsters by themselves, just for being **one** frigging minute late?!

"Kushi-san, do you need a doctor?" the idiotic blond asked.

I glared at him before forcing my self up, grabbing some pajamas from the, still packed, suitcase I had, and a towel and locked myself in the bathroom.

I sighed as I placed my forehead against the mirror in the bathroom, I went over and let the water of the shower run, but didn't bother to get in; instead I grabbed a razor, and pulled down the sleeve of my shirt and pulled off the wristband. I lightly traced the scars that ran across my wrist, before doing what I did best.

...:Next Day:...

"Why aren't you wearing the uniform we gave you?"

I instead glared at the twins, before adjusting my black, little vest thingy, which covered some of my white shirt, I still wore wristbands and my earrings, although now my hair was loose today, in a sort of, 'yes, I didn't bother to brush my hair today, so what?' way, I wore the thinner glasses, which made everyone stare at me, and I was wearing one of those hats that looked like it might have been a top hat, but it was squished down, into a sorta, triangular shape, although not all of them have that shape, but still.

"You can bill my grandparents for the frigging uniform, toastards." I told them, not caring that they stared at me, whether for frigging or toastards, don't know, don't care.

"Your grandparents?"

"They can't be normal can they, no, they can't just pinch my cheeks and ask about if I have any new friends and tell me what to do about my love life, instead they have to encourage rebellion and be so weird." I muttered more to myself than anyone else.

"Zhuul, I already told you about the hats, that's detention for you today, after school." Kazuka-sensei said as he passed by our little group, which consisted of the twins, the brunette, and me.

"See you then." I replied, then turned to the brunette, "Hey, do you know where detention is held?" and then I finally realized something, "What's your name?"

"I'm Haruhi Fujioka, these are Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin, and no, I don't know where detention is held." he answered, he sounded pretty girly, but then again, I have to regretfully admit that I do as well.

"Ah, you two look like you'd know." I told the twins.

"Why do you say that?" they asked at the same time, looking a bit pissed off.

"Cause you got a detention yesterday for today, just cause I didn't know your names, doesn't mean I'm inattentive." I explained which made them more pissed by the looks of it.

"Fine, we'll take you with us." they replied, albeit, a bit begrudgingly, but still, at least now I have guides.

...:After School:...

"Those little duckers." I said to myself, maybe I really should take my grandparents advice, tie down your informant so he can't get away before giving you the information, although I do wonder where they learned that from. Instead I merely roamed about the school, Kazuka-sensei couldn't yell at me, I'd only been in school for what, three days, how could I know where the detention room was, and, my guides left me.

I sighed, "Wow, this is boring." I commented to myself, "I may as well go do my homework of my own free choice and will." I considered the thought for a few moments, "Nah." and I walked off in, some direction, wasn't really sure where I was headed.

...:Some Time Later:...

"I wonder where I am."

I looked around at the students who still remained, I noticed not one of them wore the same uniform as the other high schoolers that I saw, but they all appeared to be my age, "Ah, these must be the students before they head of to high school, so they're technically, hmm, would they really be freshmen?" I wondered to myself as I stood there, not registering that there were still other people trying to get through the hallway, which I was innocently standing in the middle of.

Something, or more accurately someone, crashed into me, sending me to the ground, and resulting in me placing my hands in front of me to save my face, but my hands did end up hurting very much.

"Ah, I'm so sorry, I didn't see you, are you alright?" the person asked me, their voice got annoying very easily, so I tuned them out while I got up.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, not to worry, I've faced worse, yadda, yadda." I answered, not paying attention to the fact that I didn't really understand what they said, and tried to wave them away as I made sure that my wristbands were still in place.

"What's worse then being a new kid and not knowing even the language?"

I stared at the tall kid, frick, even though he's younger, he was still taller than me, "Ok, two things, my grandparents, and having apparently everyone, including people in the lower grade levels know who I am." I responded, I looked more closely at the kid, he seemed vaguely familiar, what with his tanned skin, not nearly as dark as my own, spiky, black hair, and dark eyes.

"You're in high school?" he asked, "You look like you could be my age."

"How old are you?" I questioned in turn.

"Fourteen." he answered easily, not seeming to realize I could have turned out to be some serial little boy rapist or something, not that I was or anything, just using it as an example.

"Yeah, I'm fifteen." I told him, "You look familiar, do you have a brother or something?"

He looked down at me with a strange look in his eyes, probably finding it hard to believe I was older than him, before answering, "Yes, I'm Satoshi Morinozuka, I have an older brother, Takashi, but everyone calls him Mori, do you know him?"

"I don't know, does he hang out with the really short, blond kid in something called a Host Club?"

"Yeah." he answered, smiling idiotically.

"Yeah, I kinda know him, hey, take me to that room, I'm lost." I ordered him, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Ah, sure, but can you wait for me to do something?" he asked, I merely nodded my head in answer and followed him somewhere, he stopped outside the doors to the building though, "I'm sorry, could you wait out here, Chika will be upset, and that's not really a good thing to see." I nodded my head before leaning against the wall next to the door as he slipped into the building.

In the meantime I merely leaned against the wall, bored, oh so, _very_ bored. I slipped off my hat and twiddled it around in my hands for a bit before slipping it back on, as I slipped the hat back on, I noticed a pair of boys looking over at me and nudging each other, I wondered what that was about, but didn't care enough to investigate.

"Hey, you wanna go out with us?" someone asked me, I lifted my head enough to see that in the few minutes that I had been distracted by the shiny buttons on my vest, the two guys had come over to where I was, I looked the one that had asked up and down quickly.

"Depends, how old are you?" I asked, planning to reject him no matter what he said.

"I'm fourteen." he answered, smirking at me, just because he was taller.

"Sorry, even if I did consider you as cute, I don't date younger men." I answered,

"What, you have to be the same age as me." he said,

"No, I'm fifteen, and I'm also currently in high school too." I corrected him.

"Hey, you know, girls with creepy eyes like you should be happy anyone asks them out." he told me.

I glared at him immeadiately; I brought my hands up and cracked my knuckles, "You will pay for calling me that." I told them, before delivering punishment.

"Ah yeah, Chika I would like you to meet, um, what happened?" Satoshi asked, seeing me tie up the pair of guys with a strip of cloth that I had ripped from their shirts.

"They believed I wanted to go out with them, and called me a girl, really, before asking a person out they should be sure of their gender." I explained as I finished tying the two up.

"You mean, you're not a girl?" he asked, the person next to him seemed embarrassed by his friend, the person had blondish, brunette hair and brown eyes framed by glasses.

"No, I'm male." I answered, then kicked the two guys off to the side, "Anyway, if you can just take me to that club room, I should be able to find my way to, some place that I know." Satoshi wasn't moving; he seemed somewhat frozen, "Ok, I'll try to find somewhere familiar on my own in that case." I said and started to walk off, and then Satoshi and the other person who I supposed was Chika followed me.

...:Later:...

I opened the door to the club room, making everyone stare at me, I sighed as I sat down on a couch, I noticed that none of the girls that were normally there, were there, just the seven guys, plus the two that I ended up bringing.

'I'll rest for a bit, then I'll head off to the blond's house' I thought to myself, completely inattentive to the facts that Chika was trying to beat up the smaller blond, and failing miserably, and the deserting twins were in the room.

"Kushi-san, where have you been all day, you made daddy so worried!" the idiotic blond, Tamaki, I keep forgetting he has a name, proclaimed.

"If I recall, my father has skin as dark as mine, and you my friend, well not really friend, and I can't really call you an acquaintance, but anyway, you are as white as a piece of chalk compared to me." I corrected him, again raising an eyebrow at him and his little 'emo corner' as I shall now call it, I shrugged my shoulders and got up from the couch, deciding that doing my homework would be better than hanging with these people.

I exited the entire school successfully this time, and no one seemed to have noticed that I had gone away. Why did that no longer surprise me, the only person that would have cared was dead, my dearly beloved Lawr.

Crazy: Sorry, I meant to put this part out a heck of a lot sooner, but I've got practices for color guard each day, so that's pretty much 8am – 4pm everyday, in other words, even if I did want to write out something, I would not have had either the time or energy to do so. Also, the hat that Kushi is talking about, is actually a fedora, the type of hat I wish I had.

Plus, as I feared, I do believe that Love is… will soon enough be coming to an end, but that won't be until chapter 20 something or other. I'm running into major brain blockage for that story and am already thinking up some final chapters to tie up all the lose ends, we'll just have to wait and see if this is true or not though.


	5. Thought 5

"Well, I'm moving out now."

"I'll miss you Kushi-san!" Tamaki, finally remembered his name, said, tearing up, wow, barely out the door and already he's acting like I'm dead, lovely. Isn't it weird how the Japanese weekend only lasts Sunday?

"We'll see each other at school, I guess." I told him as I patted A'laa's head, he never cared about what house we lived in, so long as he had his aquarium, his once a month mouse, and me, he was ok.

"But still, I won't see you that much there!" he exclaimed,

"Well, such a shame, oh well, I guess our friendship was never meant to be." I told him, hoping he got the clue that I didn't like him.

"Ah, you'll still come to the Host Club though, right, the customers seem to like you." he commented.

I was about to decline nicely with some made up excuse about homework or something else just as idiotic, but my grandfather, who had decided to come along to pick me up, whacked me in the leg with his cane and glared at me.

"Ah, I'll have to see about it, but I think I might be able to, maybe, I'm not sure." I answered, my grandfather whacked me again, "But it does seem most likely, well, we have to be going now, bye." I added and I walked off with my grandfather to the cab he had taken here.

I glared at the, still somehow taller, old man, he too wore thick glasses, unfortunately for me, the day I got these new glasses that weren't thick, someone had stolen all ten of my spare glasses, I wonder, who on earth could have had access to my room and also know that I had new glasses, please note the sarcasm and the mental arrows pointing at the idiotic blond.

"For what reason must you whack me so hard?" I asked him,

"It is rude to end friendships for useless reasons." he answered, "Besides, being friends with him will make your job easier." he added.

I stopped walking and merely stared at the old man in confusion before catching up with him, "What job, I don't have a job yet, I don't even think I'm old enough to have one, am I?" I questioned, wondering what he was talking about.

The old man merely remained silent and pushed me into the car before himself, he then told the cabbie the address and he remained silent the rest of the way, oh how the old man annoyed me so.

...:Later:...

"Frap."

I stared at the house I would now live in, why is it that I did not know my grandparents were rich?

"Who did you kill to get all this cash?" I asked sarcastically, earning me, what I can only assume was supposed to be a severe glare, from my grandfather, "Sorry." I said, he turned his glare from me and stared ahead as he unlocked the door, I carried my one suitcase with me as I entered the house, he allowed me to enter before him.

Grandfather made me leave my suitcase with him as I entered though, I wondered why, that is until the floor opened up beneath me, the only reason I didn't fall in the spike filled pit beneath me was because I had caught hold of the edge before I could fall any further.

"What the heck, are you trying to kill me?" I shouted in shock at my grandfather who calmly stood there, and did not at all offer to help me as I climbed out of the pit, "Is this because I didn't write or something?" he remained silent.

He suddenly spoke, "Finish the course without dying and you can live here." he then took my suitcase and left through an opening in the wall that immeadiately closed after him.

I wondered what he meant by that, but I didn't care too much, instead I approached the door I had just come through, and was about to touch the doorknob, when I noticed a spark flew off of it.

"Ok, doorknob is electrocuted; windows probably are too, looks like my only option is to go through this death trap." I contemplated aloud, "I have the freakiest grandparents alive." I added.

I went around the hole that was still open and stepped carefully onto the ground ahead, although I apparently was not careful enough, I heard something click and metal arrows shot out of the walls and to me, I somehow moved out of the way in enough time.

"Ok, careful alternative can be forgotten now, instead, let's face whatever comes and handle it in an elegant and well thought out way." I said to myself.

A few minutes later I had been forced to solve a Rubik's Cube in under ten minutes or my head would be cut off by the knife that was slowly inching closer to my neck, dodge three swinging pendulums, all swinging at different times, dodge more fire being blown out at me from the sides, and fight ten well armed people with only one gun with six bullets in it and not kill them. Now, there were three flaming rings that I supposed I was going to have to jump through to get to the door on the other side.

"Hey, Grandfather, Grandmother, if you're listening, you guys suck right now." I told them, immeadiately afterwards a giant hole appeared in the ground and left barely enough of a ledge for me to open the door without falling off, "You have got to be kidding, come one, be within reason." it took a few seconds before small columns appeared between the flaming rings, although after the last ring there was no column for me to land on, "Ok, that works, thank you." I responded before successfully jumping through the first ring without setting myself on fire and then jumping through the next two and playing a quick game of Mine Sweeper to open the door.

"Oh Kushi, you did so much better than we expected, now really, I didn't want to do this, but your grandfather is just too hard headed, and refused to have you in the house unless you could prove that you had potential, I'm so happy you did." my grandmother told me before hugging me happily.

"Ok, thanks, but can I still ask what the heck is going on here?" I asked, not glaring at my grandmother, she was too happy over the fact that I was alive to have been the culprit, but my grandfather did seem to be glaring at me.

"Do you remember the stories we told you when you were younger?" he asked,

"Yeah, what does that have to do with anything, they're just stories?" I questioned in turn, looking curiously at my grandfather.

"Well they're all true." he answered calmly, as if though he were just telling me the time instead of how our family had stolen some of the world's greatest paintings of all time, and that we had even stolen the Mona Lisa and the one in the museum was merely a well crafted copy.

"Am I on Punk'd, where's Ashton Kutcher, where did you put the cameras?" I asked, hoping very much this had all been some type of sick joke.

"No, you are not on that show, whatever it is." my grandfather answered, and he removed his glasses, revealing a pair of eyes as crimson as my own, "We have been waiting for the day that you would come, 

you have the marking of a true Zhuul, just like your great, great, great, great, great grandfather before you, I can only hope you do not disappoint me as your father did."

I stared at my grandmother, hoping she could provide an answer to this, "Your father decided to not join in the family business; he became a lawyer as you know, and your grandfather still hasn't forgiven him."

"Ah, so I never saw more of you guys because Dad and Grandfather are so mad at each other?" I rephrased in simpler terms, she nodded her head, "Well, I don't have any dreams, I don't know what I want to be when I'm older, and so I'll just live out every little kid's dream and become an awesome art thief." I announced.

Grandfather approached me and clapped me on the shoulder, "Good choice, we'll begin your training tomorrow." he answered, "Your bags are in your room, up the stairs, down the hall, third door to your left."

I exited the room through the only other door, and as soon as I was out of the room I suddenly asked, "Hey, since I just went through that other course, and my training doesn't start until tomorrow, do you think you could, I dunno, maybe turn these traps off too? I mean, really, I understood the spike filled pit, but alligators?"

I climbed out of the pit and as I did it closed up, concealing the alligators that almost made a meal out of me, and then I decided, just to be safe, to go up the stairs and through this hallway as quickly as possible. I entered the room and there on a dresser was A'laa who was not happy at all with how his tank had been set up, I went over and fixed it up before changing for bed and heading to sleep, I was tired and I still had school tomorrow.


	6. Thought 6

"Zhuul, why were you not at detention Saturday?"

"Ah, well, you see Kazuka-sensei, since I'm still a new student here I didn't know where the detention room was, and although the twins there said they would take me there, they instead ditched me, leaving me to get lost in this large school until I found someone who was able to guide me somewhere I knew and from there I exited the school building." I answered to the glowering teacher.

He glared at me some more before turning his glare to the twins, "Hitachiin, you will have three days of detention, one for the initial detention, one for skipping yesterday's detention, and one more for not guiding Zhuul to his detention, and Zhuul, you get another detention for not having the person guide you to the detention room."

"But the person I got to guide me wasn't a high schooler." I said,

Kazuka-sensei glared at me, "Fine, you'll have your one detention, since the elementary, middle, and high schools all have different detention rooms." and he walked back to the front of the class to begin his torture of us all.

...:Later:...

"So this is the detention room." I contemplated to myself, I merely sat in the Art Room with a few other people, the few other people being four boys who were not at all familiar to me, the twins, and Kazuka-sensei who sat at the front of the room, seated in the teacher's desk and reading a newspaper, turns out he's also the art teacher.

I then pulled out my usual book of Pride & Prejudice, I've read it dozens of times, yet it never gets old, and even if it was just a fictional character about good hundred or so years old, I needed _something_ to remind me of my dear Lawr. Yes, if you have yet to realize, Lawr was a boy, I am a boy; we were gay and loved each other both very much.

What really sucked the most about Lawr dying, was that his parents wouldn't even let me go to the funeral, and all the stuff that Lawr had written in his will that was supposed to go to me, he was always updating that thing, cause you can never know, good thing he did, his parents somehow convinced the lawyers that although their son had written that down, it didn't count because he was still a minor when he had written it.

I know his parents had good reason to hate me, I mean, Lawr and I had been boyfriend and boyfriend for a good two years without their knowing, and Lawr hadn't even told them he was gay in the first place since his parents had always been super religious and probably would have locked him in a church if he had told them earlier, which was why we were going to tell them, once we had all of Lawr's stuff moved into my place, because my parents were cool with us being gay and everything.

Then I had to go and mess up things by getting into some stupid argument with him, about something that I forget now, and I had to run across the frigging street to try and get away from him without looking at the signal, and he had to be the stupid, brave, and nice guy that he was and push me out of the way of the oncoming car and get himself run over!

"Hey, why is a pretty girl like you crying?" one of the guys that I didn't know asked, smirking at me, probably expecting me to bawl out my eyes on his shoulder and then go and get myself screwed by him.

I hadn't even noticed I had started to cry while thinking about Lawr, but I was certainly not going to tell this guy the real reason why I was crying, "I'm crying because I had to look at your face." I answered, and then I realized what he called me, "Also, thank you for calling me pretty, but I'm not a girl, toastard."

"Sheesh, you look like one though, maybe instead you're just a faggot." the guy replied, his friends laughed with him.

"The term is homosexual, and yes I am." I responded, glaring at the annoying little toastard, who had been silenced along with his friends.

"Well, you've all been in here long enough I suppose, you can leave now." Kazuka-sensei said, not seeming to have cared about my admitting that I was gay, although the twins did stare at me strangely, didn't understand why though.

...:Later:...

"You know, I would like to be able to just walk through the door like a normal kid." I shouted into the house while precariously balancing on the small amount of landing I had to stand upon, before jumping the length of the trap door and running through the rest of the course, only to be handed a small hand gun and be told to shoot all moving targets that could have posed a threat during a mission. I, somehow, shot every one of the targets successfully, although I had no prior training in this sort of thing, oh how very much I was confused.

"How did I do that?" I asked aloud, staring at the targets with the bullet holes in them, smack dab in the center.

"It's your blood, you probably have all the greatest talents of your great, great, great, great, great grandfather, he never learned how to use his weapons, he just knew." Grandfather said as he entered the shooting range and stood next to me, "Yes, I doubt we will have to teach you too much, although you shall have to adjust, and your Japanese, we need to work on it before your debut."

"Debut?" I asked, staring at the senile, old man.

"Your first job, it'll be in three weeks, be sure to have your skills down by then." he explained as he exited the room.

"You suck!" I shouted at him, turning back to the targets, only to discover that there was instead a computer screen with instructions, telling me to practice shooting with both my right and left hands, that old man _really_ sucked.

I sighed before picking up a pair of guns and practicing, completely unaware of the oncoming torture.

* * *

crazy: Sorry, you guys only get two short chapters, and they're really just boring, but don't worry, from this point on it gets a lot better, anyway, I think I might have more time to write next week, not as much practice because of teacher inservice, anyway, see you all later

**_VIVE LA SUMMER_**

Also, that little purple button down there, yeah, it's not just decoration, click it, you know you want to, it will reveal the answer to the most important question of all time: Why don't those kids just give the rabbit the damn Trix?


	7. Thought 7

...:One Week Later:...

I passed by a group of girls, yet again giving me dirty looks, while on my way to the library, I didn't bother to respond to them, they believed I didn't understand what they were saying merely because it was in Japanese. I now understood it well enough, that if I was actually pale, then I could possibly be mistaken for an actual Japanese person.

The reason why I was getting dirty looks, the guys that tried to ask me out in detention, they told everyone I was gay, and so the girls that had heard about me being in the Host Club, thing, whatever, all gave me dirty looks for lying to them and acting as if though I was straight. There are so many problems with their discrimination, one, I never said I wasn't gay, two, it wasn't like I flirted with them, all I did was talk to them, three, why should my gender preference matter at all, and finally, I didn't want to be in that stupid club in the first place, that Tamaki guy just made me do it.

I sighed, my grandfather still wanted to test out my disguise, to make sure I could do it excellently and make no mistakes at all, I wondered what my disguise even was, and they had yet to tell me. I flipped through one of my numerous books, this one only looked like a text book, inside were actually the blue prints for the place we were stealing from, Grandfather wanted to test my memorization skills and so I only had today to memorize the entire layout of the twenty story business building.

"Ah, Kushi-san."

I checked around me, out of mere habit, to see if I had not misheard what had just been said by someone, before actually turning around myself and seeing the brunette from my class, Haruhi, standing there.

"You haven't been to club for a while, Tamaki-senpai wanted me to get you, but I hadn't been able to do so the past few days, you walk fast." he explained to me.

I merely blinked a few times before pushing up my glasses and answering while looking through the blue prints, "So I've been told, can you tell that Tamaki guy that I'm actually too busy to do, whatever it is that club thing does." I started to walk off, but Haruhi once more interfered.

"If I don't take you back, my debt will be raised by two thirds." he said, trying to guilt me into going with him.

"Awww, wish I could help, but I have my own problems right now." I responded, but Haruhi was persistent, oh how I hate persistency.

"You mean the thing about you being gay?" he asked, probably doubted it because he heard it as a rumor or something.

"Sure let's go with that." I answered, flipping through the pages of blue prints, I just needed to memorize five more floors, then I needed to actually get to my homework, and once that was done, I would have to call my grandparents in advance that I was coming back, so that they would have enough time to set up the course and whatever training they had in mind, and then once I was done with all that, I would be able to take a shower and sleep at long last.

"Why do you care about what people think?"

"I don't per se, but I'm just trying to get you to go away." I answered, flipping to the next floor of the blue prints.

"Sorry." he said, looking rather offended,

"No, I should say sorry, I've just been having a bad day with all this shat about me going around, and then I have this thing with my grandparents after school that I dread, I'm sorry, I just took it out on you." why did I always have to apologize, when I was younger I even apologized for my existence to my classmates, just because they didn't like me, I really hated me back then.

"Do you hate your grandparents?"

"I don't hate them, but I don't like my grandfather, old, senile, toastard." I answered, mumbling the words about my grandfather.

"Why do you have so many books?" Haruhi asked, suddenly changing the subject.

I looked at my arms, besides the one book that I was reading, I had another five in my left arm, and I had another three in my messenger bag, "Grandparents are making me study, wait, what was that about a debt?" I suddenly asked him.

"Ah, when I first came I knocked over a really expensive vase, and I'm not rich, so I have to work off the debt." he answered,

"Ah, that sucks, then I'll go with you to explain to that Tamaki guy that I can't do anything with that club because my grandparents are making me do stuff everyday after school." I replied, and I thought that since he had one of the school uniforms he was loaded or something, turns out he's here on a scholarship, same as me.

The two of us soon arrived at the club room, I easily opened the door, even though I was carrying six books in one arm, only to bring Haruhi down with me so that we would avoid being hit with a ball that happened to rocket past and almost hit us in the face.

"See, this place is a death zone, number one reason why I haven't come recently." I told Haruhi, but I was soon attacked by a blond blur who started to hug me while shouting something about daddy missing me, but all the hugging caused my books to fall out of my hands, and I was worried if the papers were visible, so using a move that Grandfather had recently made me master, I escaped his grasp, while he flew off into his emo corner, and started to pick up the few papers, which were thankfully not important, and place them back into my hands.

"Eh, what's this person doing back here?" the twins asked, staring at me as I picked up my books and stood once more.

"The only reason I have come is to explain to that guy over there, I will be unable to attend this stupid club, because one, why would a gay guy be here, and two, my grandparents are currently having me do far too much to concern myself with something that I do not even enjoy in the first place." after explaining my self I then turned around and exited the room, I looked through the last few pages of blue prints and was confident in my knowledge.

'My gosh, people are so annoying.' I thought, before smiling bitterly at myself, 'I guess old habits really do die hard, I was really too rude, maybe I should apologize, perhaps another day.' I added to that thought, easily walking off to the library, ignoring whatever guilt I should be feeling.


	8. Thought 8

...:Two Weeks Later:...

'I'm glad they don't really like to concern themselves with rude people.' I thought, swirling the liquid in my glass around, before making another surveillance of the room, 'I can't believe I was actually dressed up like this.' I added as I took a sip from the Mountain Dew I was drinking, careful not to smear my lip gloss against the glass.

My grandmother, having decided that since I was already so very easily taken for a girl, I would be disguised as one, so my shoulder length hair was carefully curled and set into a lovely style, a light coating of make up was placed upon my face, and I wore a simple black dress, and heels too, to hide my easily distinguishable eyes, I wore a pair of green contacts, which were also prescription, so I didn't have to wear glasses.

"Excuse me, would you like to dance?"

"Hm?" I turned to look at the boy, only one of the countless that had already asked me to dance, was I really that attractive as a girl? "Oh, I'm sorry, my grandparents told me to wait for them here, and I wouldn't want them to get worried if I went off dancing with someone."

"Ah, in that case might I provide you some company?" he asked, probably thinking he was being a complete gentleman, yeah right.

"I'm not sure, my grandparents are very old fashioned, so if I had my chaperone with me, then surely they would not object, but sadly I do not, and they would think it highly improper if they came back and found me with some boy." I answered, trying to look like a sweet, innocent, and obedient, little, coy, rich girl who obeyed her grandparents' every whim.

"Perhaps another time then." and he walked off, probably deciding that an angry pair of grandparents were not worth speaking to some pretty girl when he could easily find another just as pretty or even more so.

I sighed in relief, I did not at all enjoy being around so many people, someone suddenly tapped my shoulder and I turned to be faced with a familiar set of purple-blue eyes, but I remained calm and did not at all panic, "Yes?" I asked, trying my best to not at all do anything that could make him think of who I actually was.

"Oh, I'm sorry, you just seemed a bit familiar, I am Tamaki Suoh, and what is your name princess?" Tamaki asked, kissing my hand, what a weirdo.

"I'm sorry, I think I see my grandparents, I must head over to them, sorry again." I answered, heading over to where I saw my grandparents, who were disguised as well, and under the rouse of being friends to the hosts, and having dabbled well into the stock market and that was how they gained their fortune, which as it would turn out, was true.

"Ah, sirs, this is our grand daughter, Khaleda, Khaleda, these are Yazuma-san and Kawaki-san." my grandfather said as I appeared next to him, I curtsied to the men, putting on my false act of being Khaleda Ahmed, grand daughter to Aadil and Khawla Ahmed, my parents died just a few years ago and so I lived with my grandparents.

"It is a pleasure to meet you." I told them, smiling a shy smile at them.

"You have such a polite grand daughter Ahmed-san, I only wish either of my children or my grandchildren would behave so well." Yazuma-san said, I merely stood there and listened as the four elders spoke for some time, then my grandparents said something about having to head off and seeing more people, so we said good bye to them and headed off to a secluded hallway.

"Alright, from here on, only initials, you are K, I am G, and she is M, understood?" my grandfather said, we nodded our heads before heading further into the building, once we reached our destination, we changed our outfits easily, my grandmother and I had shorts on underneath our dresses so we didn't worry about that, but both we and my grandfather pulled out masks that were tucked into our outfits and pulled them over our heads so our faces were completely covered.

We turned the corner and came upon what seemed to be a normal hallway, but my grandmother pulled out a hair spray can from her purse and sprayed it, revealing red security lasers that covered almost every inch of the area.

"K, you need to get to the other side, once you're there, there should be a box, you must press in the override code, the lasers will deactivate once you do that, thus enabling us to get through here, now go." my grandfather told me, or he would have, if it wasn't for the fact that I had completely ignored him and allowed him to ramble senselessly as I was already more than halfway through the lasers.

"Relax G, I'm already over here." I answered as I quickly punched in the override code, and thus the lasers disappeared.

"You can't even wait for me to finish talking?" he asked, glaring at me, I supposed, it was hard to tell if he was or not with the mask covering his face.

"If I wait, we could get caught." I answered, he patted my head, obviously pleased with my answer, and then we hurried to get through the rest of the security traps before arriving at a vault.

"M, do you have the items?" I asked, my grandmother handed me a glove, a taper recorder and a small orb with a blue center in it that looked very much like an eye, which it was supposed to imitate. I pulled on the glove and placed my now gloved hand on the scanner, the machine scanned the handprint that was on the glove and then I brought the eye up to the iris scanner, it passed successfully, the machine asked for voice recognition and I played the recording, the door to the vault then swung open.

We entered the vault swiftly, my grandmother staying by the door to make sure it stayed open, my grandfather and I went deeper into the vault, ignoring the gold, gems, jewels, and money, only focused on the item that mattered anything to us. I stopped as my grandfather did as he made a few checks for extra traps, he told me it was okay and I approached the painting, covered with a cloth, I gently removed the cloth to look at the painting, it was a water color, entitled 'Fish on a Dish' it would sell for perhaps 8,000 or so in the market. I carefully removed the painting from its place on the floor, I turned to my grandfather and nodded to him, confirming this was what we wanted.

He nodded back and we quickly returned to my grandmother, then we headed upstairs, where my grandfather found an oh so conveniently placed power box, and shut it down, sending everyone into darkness, minus us, we had night vision goggles. We easily escaped in the darkness, leaving the business building behind us, and allowing the police to handle the situation with the power box, and the owner of this stolen masterpiece to wonder whether he should tell the police, thus admitting he bought the stolen painting, or just leave it be.

"You did well Kushi, much better than I thought you would." my grandfather told me.

"Gee, really, thanks, cause you know, I just dressed up as a girl and suffered being hit on, only to get a slightly good comment, that was totally my goal." I replied, glaring at the old man as I pulled off the stupid dress and pulled a tank top over my head while taking the make up off my face, "I saw a guy that I know from school there and he said I looked familiar." I told them, my grandfather glared at me and was about to say something, but I beat him to it, "I told him I had to come over to you two before he could get a closer look at me."

My grandfather nodded his head and told me, "You must make sure no one finds out about you, if they do, well, that's not something to discuss aloud."

I nodded before pulling on my black wrist bands, how strange that my grandparents had said they could notice the fakeness of anything, and had yet to realize that I had placed make up over my wrists.

* * *

crazy: Yeah, unfortunately, just cause I'm updating, it don't mean I've got new chapters already written, and I'm going to have more difficulty writing, because the internet on my laptop, is no longer wireless. Curse my stupidness for not listening to my father when he told me not to upload Limewire again. Anyway, appearently, Limewire did something to my laptop and it completely obliterated the wireless internet connection, it no longer exists, so the only way I can get internet, is if I have my laptop plugged into the internet box in our computer room, but this is where my sis and her boyfriend hang out most the time they're here, right now they're out eating for their sixth month anniversary. So in conclusion, it's going to take a while for more chapters to come up, quite honestly I do not derserve such patient readers such as yourselves, I really am a lucky little writer aren't I?


	9. Thought 9

I flipped carelessly through Pride & Prejudice, I didn't feel too much like crying so early in the day, before taking a quick surveillance of the classroom again, Haruhi and the twins hadn't bothered me for some time, perhaps the blond, Tamaki, had finally given up on me.

Now less people bothered me, perhaps word of how I was rude to the, oh so precious, Host Club had gotten around and everyone decided I wasn't worth talking to, five years ago I would have had no problem at all with this, but that was five years ago, before I had met Lawr, and I had finally started to feel lonely.

Lawr was everything to me, the day I met him and he was so persistent to be my friend, although I never admitted it, I loved how persistent he had been, it made me feel, just a bit important. I finally closed the book and laid my head down for a bit, deciding that I really did hate Austen after all, I closed my eyes and drifted to the past.

...:Five Years Ago:...

_"Class this is Lawrence Carson, he's a new student, so be nice, now where can you sit?"_

_A small, dark skinned, dark, longish, shaggy haired individual sat in the back of the class, his nose buried deeply into a rather thick, book and his eyes hidden with much too thick glasses._

_The girls in the class looked adoringly up at the tall, red headed, pale, green eyed boy, shoving each other off of their seats to make room for the boy next to them._

_"Miss, what about back there, next to that guy?" Lawrence asked, pointing to the seat next to the dark skinned individual, he had the darkest skin in the class now that Lawrence noticed, and he was palest._

_"Oh, ok, you can sit next to Kushi." the teacher said, a little uncertainly, she was worried, not for Lawrence, but for Kushi, none of the other students liked the boy, but she hoped Lawrence might make him his friend._

_Lawrence walked over to the seat in the back and set his book bag down next to him, just as he was about to introduce himself to the boy the teacher suddenly spoke, the boy seemed to have twitched, just barely, but that was all the movement he made to indicate he heard the teacher._

_"Alright, now class, we will be working in pairs on a report of the planetary system, you and your partner will write a two page report and create a diagram, no groaning, because whoever has the best project will be allowed to skip out on the next math test." the class still groaned, and as Lawrence noticed, many of them directed glares at the boy he sat next to, "But you can choose your partner, and do choose wisely, or I'll choose for you, also, you can start to work on it now if you want."_

_The students moved rapidly to get partners before their choices were already taken, soon enough everyone but he and the boy next to him had a partner, as he turned to ask the boy to be his partner he saw the boy was already starting the introduction to his report and had a plain sheet of paper, probably to draw how he was going to make the diagram._

_"Um, hey?" Lawrence asked, the boy, he didn't budge, "Um, you?" he still didn't respond, "Earth to person sitting next to me, are you alive?" Lawrence asked which made the boy jump and stare at him strangely._

_The boy checked behind Lawrence, no one was there, then he checked behind himself, still no one, so he pointed at himself in a questioning manner, to which Lawrence nodded his head, the boy cleared his throat before asking, "Who are and why are you sitting next to me?"_

_"Um, Lawrence Carson, I'm new, this was the only seat open, and I don't have a partner, so would you be mine?" Lawrence asked, expecting to receive a shrug of the shoulders as a yes, and so was rather surprised by the answer._

_"People will ask you to be their third member so join them." and he turned back to his introduction, which looked halfway finished already, and just as he did so, two girls came up to Lawrence to ask if he wanted to join their group._

_Then even more people came up and started asking him to join their group, so instead Lawrence grabbed the boy's wrist and said, "Sorry, we're already partners." to which everyone, even the boy who's wrist he held onto stared at him as if though he were insane, but the other students backed off anyway, still giving them strange looks and whispering to each other._

_"Since when were we partners?" The boy asked, roughly pulling his wrist from the boy's hand, and giving him an 'are you insane?' sort of look._

_"Since I said so." Lawrence answered with a smile, to which the boy got up and went over to the teacher's desk to ask her something, but then soon returned with a dismayed look on his face._

_"Look, it'll be easier if I do all the work, that way you'll still get the credit and I don't have to worry about you messing up my-, are you even listening to me?" he suddenly asked, see that Lawrence was instead reading through what of introduction he had gotten done._

_"Huh?" Lawrence asked, turning from the well written introduction to the smaller boy, whose name he __**still**__ did not know._

_"I do work, you do nothing, and we get a good grade." the boy summarized, pulling his introduction from the boy's grasp and sitting down at his desk to continue writing it._

_"Hey, this is a team project; we have to work together, besides you shouldn't expect so little of someone the same age as you." Lawrence said, he was starting to get upset with this boy's attitude._

_"I'm sorry, how old are you?" the boy asked._

_"Eleven, obviously." Lawrence answered, wondering just where this was going._

_"I'm ten." the boy answered simply and continued to write, this just made Lawrence even more upset, but then he got an idea._

_"You're going to be my best friend." he told the boy, who instead turned to stare at him through his thick glasses._

_"You don't even know my name." the boy told Lawrence, staring at him in a sort of way that made you wonder what exactly that person was thinking._

_"Sure I do, it's." he trailed off but then noticed the name on the boy's pencil case, "It's Kushi Zhuul." he answered smugly._

_"You read that off of my pencil case, idiot." he turned back to the paper, starting the first paragraph, this just made Lawrence even more upset._

_"Let's make a bet." he proposed._

_"I don't believe in gambling." Kushi lamely answered, not at all really concerned._

_"If you win I'll leave you alone for as long we both shall live." he proposed, immeadiately Kushi turned his head._

_"Well, some beliefs never last long anyway." Kushi said, "Tell me your proposition." noticing the slightly confused face on Lawrence he simplified the word, "Tell me the bet."_

_"I help with the project, if we don't get the highest score; you win, but if we do, I win and you'll be my new best friend, agreed?" Lawrence asked, putting his hand out to shake._

_Kushi didn't shake the hand though instead he very painfully admitted "If I'm working on the project there's no way the score would end up low, so you've already won," and through gritted teeth he added, "best friend."_

_Lawrence smiled at this, "Well, I'm glad anyway." he said, Kushi gave him another strange stare before messing up his hair and continuing to write, it was good Lawrence couldn't see through the mass of hair to Kushi's face, otherwise Kushi would be even more embarrassed at having his blushing face revealed._

...:Present:...

"Mmm?" I asked, my blurry vision steadily becoming clearer and clearer, only to see that Kazuka-sensei stood in front of me and that the entire class was staring at me.

"Well Zhuul, since you're paying so much attention to this lesson, you can do the problem on the board, and as an added bonus, you get a free detention for today after school." Kazuka-sensei told me as I let my head bang against the table to wake up.

"Right, thanks." I answered as I walked to the front of the class and quickly finished the problem before sitting down once, this time I didn't fall asleep.


	10. Thought 10

...:Some Days Later:...

I stood outside my house, carefully opening the door, if I opened it too much, someone might see something they shouldn't have, well actually, I _would_ have opened the door, if it weren't for the fact that it was locked and my key didn't work.

"Shat." I mummered, before going over around back to try the back door, there was a brick wall instead when I opened the door, "Yeah this is hilarious Grandfather, just effing funny." I shouted to the house, knowing he could hear me with whatever security system he had, so instead I came around to the side and sat down to think, if doors were locked, it would be a given to bet the windows are too, no cellar to use, no chimeny either, I checked through my back pack for something, good, a pen and a bobby pin, one of them must be useful.

The only window that I would be able to use without attracting too much attention would be the one on the second story that led to my bathroom, I climbed up the tree and crawled across a rather dangerously thin branch to the other side, closer to the window, I carefully used the conveniently placed clothesline and my sweater to pull myself over to the window, then using the pen, I very carefully unlocked the window and climbed in, to be faced with another of Grandfather's courses.

...:Outside:...

Haruhi happened to have been walking around the neighborhood when she noticed Kushi walking to the side of a house from the back, she was going to go over and say hi to him, but instead he climbed up the tree he had sat under, used his sweater and a clothesline to get to the window on the second floor, then he broke into the house by unlocking the window with a pen.

Her jaw only fell further and further as she saw the whole thing take place, she immeadiately thought that Kushi was trying to steal something, so she ran over to the house, easily opened the front door, and would have fallen to her death if not for the fact that she somehow grabbed onto the edge of the hole that had opened under her as the door closed itself.

"Alright, alright, but what if it's someone selling religion again?" Kushi's voice asked, to which he was answered with a shoe thrown at him, which he easily dodged, "Ok, I'm answering it." and he soon came into the entrance room, successfully avoiding swinging axes, arrows and flame throwers, although when he saw that there was someone holding onto the ledge of the hole in the ground, and he saw who that person was, he messed up a little and ended up having one of the arrows graze his face.

He stared at Haruhi for a bit, completely ignoring the blood dripping off his face, before sighing in an irritated way and grabbing her hand to pull her up easily. Then he turned to a door which had revealed itself in the wall next to him and entered the room, but went back to get Haruhi when she merely stood there, staring in shock.

"Hey Grandfather, what do we do with people who find out about your courses and see me break into the house and go through the entrance course?" Kushi asked an elderly man who sat down in front of multiple screens in what looked oddly like a main control/security room sort of thing.

The man didn't move as he asked in return, "Why do you ask?" and sipped at the tea he held in his hands as he polished what appeared to be a numerous series of guns.

"Cause, that, maybe, kind, sorta, possibly, might have happened, just a few seconds ago." Kushio asked, still ignoring the blood which was now making a small puddle on the floor.

The man turned around, and paying Haruhi absolutely no attention whatsoever told Kushi, "Go find clorox and a brush, get your grandmother to patch up your wound, then clean up your blood, I don't want you making a stain on the floor, the last one your father made _still_ hasn't gone away." and then he turned back to polishing the guns.

"Kay, come on Haruhi, don't want to bother Grandfather anymore." Kushi said and grabbed her hand to pull her along, since she still seemed to be in a state of shock, to another door and down a hall to a kitchen where an elderly woman was making food, "Grandmother, can you clean this up for me?"

"Hmm, oh my, what happened, was something on your mind when you went through the course, I mean this never happened before, you're always so careful, not even the first time did this happen." she said as she got out a first aid kit and started to tend to Kushi's cut, she had yet to notice Haruhi.

"Ah, yeah, cause the person almost fell into the hole and he's also a classmate of mine." Kushi answered, not at all flinching when the antibiotic was sprayed onto the cut

The elderly woman suddenly turned around and stared at Haruhi for a few minutes before turning back to Kushi and saying, "Kushi, he's a she." which in turned caused Kushi to stare in a somewhat surprised, but disinterested way.

"Oh, well we have black mail now, that's the important thing." he said, then he turned to stare at Haruhi, "Hey, when's she going to wake up?" he asked.

"Ah, sooner or later, why don't you go to your room and rest some, ok?" his grandmother told him, he nodded his head and hurried to his room to rest for a bit.

...:With Kushi:...

I laid in my bed with A'laa resting peacefully around my neck, I sighed, this would be over blown by my grandmother, at least I got the feeling so, I got up and shuffled through my half unpacked bags, only to come across a book I had never before seen. I opened it to be faced with pictures of when I was younger, my sister and I playing together, but soon enough my sister dissappeared from the pictures and was soon after replaced by Lawr. I flipped through all the pages, pages of smiles and laughs, inside jokes and even a picture that my mother had taken of us watching a scary movie, me with my eyes wide open in fear and half hiding behind a blanket and Lawr not even staring at the glow of the t.v., but instead twirling a piece of my hair around his finger, smiling at my scared expression.

I reached the last page, it looked like my mom enjoyed taking pictures without our knowing it, because the last one was one of me and Lawr sleeping, not the way you think, get your mind out of the gutter, in my bed, I looked so very much like a girl, with my hair spread out a bit, and my head on his chest, and his arm wrapped around me. The picture made me want to cry but I noticed the neat, cursive writing that was my mother's and reading what it said made me just a bit better.

_Kushi, _

_Stop moping all the time, you're no fun like that, and I'm positive that Lawr would want you to be happy no matter what happened, so get out there and find another handsome boy to be with, Lawr wouldn't want to see you sad, now would he?_

_Love, Mom_

I sighed sadly though, "Sorry Mom, but I already promised Lawr I would never become Delilah, not even after he died." I said to myself, remembering the promise I had made two years ago.

...:Two Years Ago:...

_I smiled happily at Lawr's sleeping face, which was in my lap, he was tired, his parents were bothering him about finding a girlfriend, but since we had finally admitted to each other that we love one another, it was just bothersome for him, especially since his parents would freak if they ever found out that their only son was gay, since it was immoral and wrong according to them and their bible. I was happy though, since the day I had first met him, I had already liked him as just a bit more than friends, although I had never admitted it to him before, since I was scared he would hate me if I did._

_Lawr suddenly opened his eyes and smiled at me, taking my hand and kissing the palm, "Hey."_

_"Morning." I answered, smiling at him, "You know, I'm starting to cramp up, you've been asleep for an hour or so." I told him, not actually caring if he moved his head or not._

_He merely shuffled his head a bit, "Well, that just goes to show you, your lap is the best pillow in the world, and it's my pillow, anyone else that tries to use it will be personally killed by me." he said, making me laugh a bit, but suddenly his face grew serious, "Hey, you're never going to be like Delilah, right?"_

_"Delilah?" I asked, wondering what he was talking about._

_"Yeah, Sampson's lover, after they spent a night together she cut off his hair, the source of his power, and gave it to his enemy, basically, she betrayed him." he explained._

_"Why the heck would I do that?" I asked and put my head down to nuzzle his nose, "You don't deserve to have something like that happen to you, besides, nothing would ever make me betray you." I told him, "Also you would look bad with no hair."_

_He chuckled a little before he smiled and pulled my head further down for a sweet kiss, "I just like to make sure, you know that." he answered, I smiled at him and gave him a quick peck, which soon turned into something else entirely._

...:Present:...

I sighed once more, so many firsts I had shared with Lawr, he was my first friend, the first person I had went anywhere but to school with, my first love, my first kiss, even my first time, they all belonged to him, _I_ belonged to him.

"Kushi-san?" a voice suddenly asked, pulling me from my thoughts, I shifted my eyes to Haruhi, who merely stood there in my doorway.

"Yeah?" I asked, not bothering to move from my bed, I was never much for manners, but Lawr never cared about that.

She looked like she wanted to say one thing, but instead said another, "Are you crying?" she asked, moving over to me and sitting down next to me on the bed.

I brought my hand up to my eyes, and indeed, there was liquid, other than blood, on my face, "Huh, what do you know, I am." I answered, I never realized I was crying whenever I thought about Lawr.

"Why?" she asked, "Why do you not like people, are rude, and why do you cry so much?" she continued, being blunt about the whole thing.

I decided to be blunt as well, "I don't like people because they never liked me, I'm rude because that's how most people are to me, and why I cry, because it's _my_ fault Lawr died." I answered, this time I could feel that the tears didn't stop.

"How can you say it's your fault, there's no way it's your fault." she told me, I could tell she was upset with me for being so weak about the whole thing, that's just how I was, without Lawr, I was as I truly am.

"It's my fault because I'm the one that started the fight, it's my fault because I ran into the street, it's my fault for making him care so much that he ran into the street and died instead of me, I shouldn't be here, I'm supposed to be dead." I answered calmly, although it felt as if there were more tears surfacing now.

"He cared of his own free will, didn't he, you didn't make him care or save you, and it takes two to tango, so the fight was started by him as much as it was started by you." she told me, I wondered why she was comforting me when she didn't even know who Lawr was.

I laid back, "Can you leave now, I wanna be alone?" I asked, she sighed, but left anyway, I curled up into a ball before taking a change of clothes, into the bathroom and hiding some bandages and a razor with them.

* * *

crazy: If someone is actually reading this, then I do not deserve a reader as dedicated as you, you're too good for a slop of a writer like me, I don't deserve such paitent readers, thank you so much for liking this story so much. Anyway, my internet connection on my laptop, magically fixed itself, no seriously it did, I was on it a while ago when I realized it, because I noticed the cord leading to the internet box, which I normally have to connect to my laptop so the internet works, was on the ground, and so I closed my internet window, and reopened it, and it still worked, I totally freaked out when I realized it. Also, on another side note, I might get to be an exchange student next year, it's not completely affirmed, but it's looking good, and I might also get to go to Korea in the summer to see my soon to be sister in law, cause she's teaching English there, and then I have to go to my brother's wedding in September in Ohio, so yeah, next year is going to be exciting. Anyway, enough about me, press the reveiw button, pretty please with sprinkles on top?


	11. Thought 11

Thought 11

"Kushi-san, why do you always wear those wrist bands?"

I turned to Haruhi, who I was currently speaking with, we were wasting away free period outside, she was hiding out from Host Club duty to hang out with me, well, she actually had a good reason to skip, we were technically supposed to be cleaning the classroom, but we finished early so Kazuka-sensei let us go early.

"Kushi?" she asked again, I had been quiet while thinking of how to answer.

"It's a secret." I answered, leaning back against the shady tree under which we were seated; I wasn't going to tell her it was to hide the abuse I did to myself.

She merely shrugged her shoulders and accepted the answer, "So, you have another mission coming up don't you?" she asked, for one reason or another Grandfather allowed her to stay alive and know about our, family business, if you could call it that.

"Yeah, but this time it's a lot different, instead I'm going to the market." I answered, the market was where all the stolen items were sold, and there would be several rich and famous people there.

Everyone who went to the market had their ancestors sign the Thief Pact hundreds of years ago, the activities held at the market were confidential, it was sort of a 'you scratch my back, I scratch yours' sort of deal, we didn't say who was there, and they didn't say who was there. The number one rule about the market, don't talk about the market, that was pretty much the only rule besides the Thief Pact, one of the rare documents that was actually honored by thieves, my grandparents told me that one of my ancestors had helped to create the Thief Pact, and it was true. They had the Thief Pact on display at the market, sort of like a museum exhibit, and the creators had all signed it, the name Zhuul was clearly written on it, that was one of the reasons why we were so well known in the thief community, besides that we were just one of the best.

"Ah, Fujioka-kun, Hitachiin-san is looking for you." a girl said, having suddenly come up to Haruhi to talk to her, completely ignoring me.

"Oh, thank you." she said, smiling at the girl, which led her to blushing quite a bit and then walking off in a daze, "Sorry." she told me, looking genuinely apologetic.

"It's ok." I answered, "I'd better get going, if those twins come over here, well, they must still hate me for ending up giving them three detentions, later." I said, waving off the depressed feeling I got, seemed like I was starting to actually make more friends than just Lawr and A'laa.

...:Some Days Later:...

"Kushi, are you ready yet?" Grandfather shouted, getting impatient with how long I was taking, so I'm gay, sue me why don't you?

"Just a bit, I think you can still see some hair." I shouted back, fixing the rest of my black hair beneath the brown wig with short hair, and then finally placing in the green contacts, I checked the bracelets around my wrists; they looked metal but were cushioned so they didn't irritate my cuts.

We had to disguise ourselves once more to enter the market, this time I was Devon Smith, my parents were divorced, I had my mother's last name, she had recently died, my father didn't want me, so he sent me to his parents, and this facade would last only until we got past the illusion that hid the market. The market was cleverly hidden within a well known business building where many rich families regularly held parties, and what better place to hide thieves than among them, for in some way all rich people were similar to thieves.

I hurried out of my room, past the usual course that my grandfather wouldn't turn off for the life of him, and over to the front where my grandparents awaited me, we were all dressed elegantly, my grandfather and I in Armani suits, and my grandmother in an excellent dark green dress, "Well, I'm ready." I told them.

"Then let's get going." my grandfather said, piling us into a rented limo, they saw no point in having one themselves, it was cheaper to rent and they wouldn't even use a limo very often anyway, attracted too much attention. We soon arrived at the business building and entered, swiftly making our way to the secret entrance of the market, we arrived to the statue, in time to see another family about to go in as well, but they saw us and waited until we arrived to open the door.

"Ah, Hakim, Sekhmet, I see you have a new addition." the man in the duo said to my grandfather and grandmother, looking at me.

"Yes, my grandson, much more promising than my own son, he's like my ancestor reincarnated." he bragged, "And how are your children's training going?" he asked, smiling at the girl, who seemed somewhere around the same age as me.

"Ah, Sakura is doing much better than expected, after this we're going to have her debut." the man said proudly.

"Really, we already had Kushi debut." Grandfather told him, "He was already much better than I expected, I thought he would fall into the pit when he first came into the home."

"Ah, true, when I first came into your home the alligators almost got me, that's the only thing that can be expected of your course, there'll be a pit at the entrance." the man said.

"Is it really that predictable?" Grandfather asked, "Well, that just means I'll have to change it around now."

The man suddenly looked at me apologetically, probably because he just destroyed the only thing in Grandfather's course that I could ever count on to be constant, "Um, Kushi, why don't you and my daughter, Sakura, go and talk together?" he suggested, probably thinking I just might be interested in his twig like daughter.

I merely nodded and headed off to look at the Thief Pact with the Sakura girl following after me; I didn't pay her any attention and merely stared at the paper through the bullet proof and nearly indestructible glass.

"Um, aren't you going to at least introduce yourself?" Sakura asked, I stared at the pale, dark haired, brown eyed girl for a bit before standing more properly.

"Why?" I asked, "I mean our guardians already said our names." I added, not realizing that I just pretty much destroyed her image of me, "Hey, are we allowed to take off these disguises once we're in the market?" I questioned hoping the answer was yes, the wig was annoying.

"Yes, I believe so." she answered, her looks were common so she obviously didn't need to disguise herself, I on the other hand had easily traceable features, I took the wig off, allowing my black hair to settle on my shoulders and then I pulled out my contacts case, removing my green contacts and then replacing them with my glasses.

Her image of me must have been even more destroyed because she now looked even more surprised, so I asked her, "Did you like me or something?" she meekly nodded her head, "Sorry, but I'm gay." I told her ever so bluntly.

"What seriously, but even like this I bet there are lots of people confessing to you." she suddenly said, completely in my face.

"Yeah, and most of them are guys." I answered.

"Is there really not even a small, tiny, microscopic chance of you at least being bi and me having a chance?" she asked, ok, so she wasn't meek, instead she was straight forward.

"No, even if I was bi, there would still be no chance because I only recently got out of a relationship with my boyfriend." I answered.

"Oh, well then if he broke up with you he was obviously not worth it." she said, upset that someone would break up with me.

"We didn't break up, he died." I corrected, showing absolutely no emotion on my face, I didn't feel too much like crying right now, "Now can we drop the subject?"

"Ok, but if I can't be your actual girlfriend, then I'll just be the next best thing." and she suddenly tackled me into a hug, "Your bestest gal pal!" obviously this time she meant as a friend.

"Right." I said, not particularly caring about her, but then I realized something, "Shat, they already started the bidding." and we both hauled butt over to the bidding area. My grandparents and her father were seated together and had saved seats for us, "Did we miss anything?" I asked Grandmother.

"No, it just started." she whispered back, but the whispers and mummers soon ended as the auctioneer came up to the stage.

"Well folks it looks like we've a full house today and before we begin, I would like to make a few announcements, first, the Zhuul family has finally found a suitable heir, Mr. Kushi Zhuul, all the way from America, he has already made his debut and the piece he stole will be auctioned today, Mr. Zhuul if you would please stand." the auctioneer said I stood to be faced with a tremendous applause, apparently my family was very well liked, much more than I had first assumed, then I sat back down, "Yes, that was Mr. Zhuul, also , the Air family has an heir of their own, Mr. Laurent Air, he has made his own debut and his piece is to be auctioned as well." Laurent stood, showing himself to be a young boy with longish, reddish brown hair and green eyes, for some reason or another he was familiar, but I shook it off, anything red always made me think of Lawr, it was nothing new, this time the applause was merely polite, not tremendous.

Sakura, having seemed to notice my confusion leaned over to me and whispered, "The Air family has never been well trusted, they use methods that none of us are happy about, and they regularly kidnap people to work with them, the chances that Laurent is even really their kid are minimal." I nodded my head, I did not like how Laurent was staring straight at me, at least, it looked like he was staring straight at me, for all I knew he could have been staring at something behind me, but something told me that wasn't the case.

"And this is the piece that Mr. Kushi Zhuul stole, 'Fish on a Dish' a piece stolen some years ago by a still unknown art thief, obviously had excellent taste, we start the bidding at 8000 US dollars, do I have 8000, yes thank you sir, 8000, do I have 8500, 8500, yes, thank you ma'm, we 8500, oh we have 9000, generous offer sir." the auctioneer said, this went on until it got to 20000, when no one would bid any higher.

Sakura and I were soon bored by the auction, but our guardians still paid avid attention, so I whispered to Grandmother, "Hey, Sakura and I are gonna go walk around, we'll be back before it's over." she nodded and returned her attention to the bidding.

Sakura and I soon came across two other teens our age that had decided that the bidding was too boring for them, so we merely hung around in the hallway right outside the market, I didn't want to bother with the wig, so instead I just put the green contacts on. We talked about our debuts and other thief like things, before we somehow drifted over to school.

"Hey, Zhuul, you're from America, right?" Ian, a bloke from England on thief business in Japan, asked.

"Yeah." I answered, wondering what he was going to ask.

"Are the birds over there really that much hotter?" I stared at his question thinking back on what few girls I had actually paid any attention to, mostly my mom and my sister, but there was, wait, no, that was my sister again, ok so I didn't pay attention to any girls besides my sister and my mom.

"Um, I dunno." I answered simply, "I didn't pay the girls much attention to them." I admitted.

"Ah, you're gay then?" he inquired, not in an arrogant way, but sort of like a, 'how's the weather?' way.

"Pretty much." I replied, sliding down the wall I had leaned against, so that instead I sat on the ground with Sakura and the other girl, Bella, she was from Spain here for a quick steal through Japan then going back home, now Ian was the only one still leaning on the wall.

"Ah, then Kushi, look at this." Bella said, showing the magazine that she and Sakura had been looking through to me, a handsome guy was in the perfume ad, well, I supposed he was handsome, he wasn't really my type.

"Hm, not my type." I responded, which made Bella and Sakura try to defend him, and making me wish I had just said he was handsome instead, I may have been gay, but that did not mean I was girly gay.

"Now look what you've done Kushi, you got them started on this thing, mate." Ian complained, which turned their anger to him instead.

The girls finally calmed down enough for Bella to ask me something else, "Then what type _do_ you like Kushi?"

I sat back and thought carefully, there was really only one type for me, "I like the Lawr type." I answered, which made them look at me strangely, wondering what the heck was a Lawr type, "The Lawr type being my first and last boyfriend." I explained. Sakura looked at me apologetically, and gave a look to the others that clearly said not to talk about it, "What about you Bella, I could see you with Ian here." I responded, smirking at their blushing faces, "I'm heading for the john, be back." and I stood to head for the bathroom.

Instead I merely went over to the sink and removed the bracelets, I was right, my fresher cuts had been starting to reopen, I placed them under some warm water to let the oh so familiar red liquid drain down the sink. It made me recall when Lawr had found out I cut myself, he had been pissed off, as I was thinking this the door opened once more, this time admitting that Laurent guy. He saw the blood dripping into the sink and for some reason, he looked pissed, but he instead walked back out, probably didn't want to associate himself with an emo.

I pulled out the bandages I had brought with me, wrapped up my wrists again, and placed the bracelets back on, ignoring the screaming of my wrists. I exited the bathroom only to be pushed to the wall and glared at with emerald like eyes that made me want to cry.

"Why, are you doing that?" Laurent growled out, he was clearly much more upset than I had thought he had reason to be.

"Better question, why do you care?" I asked back, trying not to let on that I was scared shitless right now, he looked very menacing, the expression was familiar, I could swear it.

"That doesn't matter, but why should you throw your life away?" he asked, getting more upset by the minute, I could tell by how his grip on my arms tightened.

"Why do you care?" I questioned again, wondering just what the heck was going on, especially since instead of answering he kept me caged in his arms and sighed as he set his forehead against the wall, directly above my head.

"_And how can I stand here with you, and not be moved by you, would you tell me how could it be any better than this, you calm the storms and you give me rest, you hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall._" he whispered, in a sort of half sing song voice, just barely loud enough for me to hear, into my ear.

"How, how do you, how do you know it?" I asked him, refusing to believe what my heart was screaming at my brain.

"Why wouldn't I know it, Kushi?" he whispered in my ear, he set his head on my shoulder, as if though he might fall asleep like that.

"No, no, it can't be you!" I shouted, some how pushing him off of me, "No, this is just too cruel, stop, stop it!" I shouted at him, tears threatening to spill out of my eyes, I ran off into some direction, I didn't care which it was, I had to get away, I didn't even notice the tears that ran down Lawr's face at my words.

I soon came across a deserted room, I sat down against the door and placed my head into my arms as I sobbed, I didn't even know why it was I was sobbing. Shouldn't I be happy, Lawr was alive, he wasn't dead, we could go back to how things were, couldn't we? But he had pretended he was dead for more than two months now, people that were dead weren't supposed to come back after almost three months. If he had been alive, why hadn't he contacted me, why did he let me die inside, we had promised never to keep anything to ourselves, why did he break that promise when he was the one to make it?

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know someone was in here." another familiar voice announced as the door opened.

"Doesn't matter." I said, trying to rub out the tears, but instead succeeding in accidentally removing one of my contacts and dropping it on the ground, "Fruck." I muttered, picking it up and keeping my head down, still wiping away the tears.

"Are you alright?" the voice asked, I was sure it belonged to the blond that had bothered me far too much at school, Tamaki.

"I'm perfectly fine, life just sucks is all." I answered, pushing him away from me, while trying to keep my face hidden.

"Are you sure, I'm pretty sure I heard crying in here." he told me, finally lifting my head up, and then looking surprised at my fake green eye and my real red eye, "Ku-"

"Sorry about this." I cut him off as I aimed a fist at his face, successfully knocking him out, I checked outside the door, good, no one was there. I dragged his limp body over to the coffee table, he could believe I was a dream cause by when he tripped and fell onto the coffee table that was also how he ended up with a black eye.

I then snuck out of the room and found a bathroom to clean my contact in and wash my face of the tears, I placed the contact back in and went off to find my friends and head back to my grandparents and then head home. I mentioned nothing of the so called Laurent Air who was instead just a promise breaking, supposedly dead, boyfriend of mine.

* * *

crazy: Oh my freaking goshners, you all got a triple update, and yes, I am ahead by nine chapters, so I'm working on Thought 20, and the end is going to come pretty soon after, also, you know, while I was typing Thought 19, I just realized I hadn't even given either of Kushi's grandparents names, I only ever gave them those fake names, wow, I'm such a loser, taking almost twenty chapters to actually come up with names for two vitally important characters, again I do not deserve such wonderful readers like you all, thank you, and if there's just a little extra kindness in your heart, please, review.


	12. Thought 12

...:Some Days Later:...

I laid my head down on my knees, I was so very depressed, it wasn't until an hour or so after the market that I realized what if Lawr had wanted to apologize, but now he never would because he thought I hated him and we would probably never see each other again until the market came up again which wasn't until next month.

"Kushi, are you alright?" Haruhi asked, once more we were hanging underneath the tree, until school started and we weren't exactly able to hang out together.

"No, I'm not." I admitted, "How crazy with grief does a person have to be until they have delusions of someone that looks rather very much like the person they're grieving for, confesses that they're that person?" I questioned which led to Haruhi looking at me strangely, "Yeah, I'm loony." I confessed, wishing that was true.

Haruhi was about to tell me something, but the bell rang and we were forced to hurry off to class, she looked apologetically at me as she went over to sit with the twins. I didn't mind that it made me lonely, I was actually happy for that, it meant she really was my friend now.

Kazuka-sensei was about to begin the lesson when there was a knock at the door, he looked upset, guess he didn't like the idea of someone interrupting his class, or being late to it. He went and opened the door, blocking whoever it was he was talking to, he soon moved back into the classroom with the person following him, I sunk into my seat at the sight of that person, at least this time the seats around me were filled.

"Class, this is a new student, Laurent Air, he recently moved here from America, Air, please take whichever seat is open." Kazuka-sensei told him, he soon moved off to a seat in the front, although he had been checking all the seats close to me.

I was thankful that he couldn't sit next to me, I felt like it would have been awkward, and besides, I had to think over whether or not to accept his apology, if he made one and taking him back, that was a whole other matter.

...:Later:...

I stood up from my seat and quickly left after having taken a quick glance at Lawr, the girls in the class were flirting with him, and he was flirting back. The second I saw that I rushed to the bathroom, not wanting him or anyone else to see the tears already overflowing my eyes, Haruhi soon followed after me, entering the bathroom in time to see me break down right there in front of her.

She knelt down on the ground next to me and rubbed my back, not even knowing what it was that made me cry, while all I could think was how much of a toastard he was, he saw me looking at him, and he just kept flirting, he had smiled so smugly at me too. I didn't know who that was, but it was definitely not my Lawr, he had asked me to not be Delilah, and instead he was being Delilah himself.

"Kushi, what's wrong?" Haruhi asked, growing more and more concerned with each tear that spilled from my eyes.

"He's not even attracted to girls, but he was flirting with them, he was purposely making me upset and worse yet, he's supposed to be dead, but there he was." I somehow sobbed out, Haruhi was even more confused, so I took some shaky breaths and explained it to her, about how I had seen him at the market and he had told me who he was, how he had even sung a part of the song that he had told me made him think of me with each line.

"You mean, Air-san, is actually Lawr?" Haruhi asked, probably thinking I was crazy.

"Yes, no one else could have known that song was the one that made him think of me." I answered, now much calmer than before.

"But, you saw Lawr die in front of your own eyes, how is that possible?" she asked, as confused as I was.

"I don't know, but honestly, I don't think that is Lawr, he would never do something like that, he always politely refused them, even before we were dating or confessed to each other, and when we were dating he did the exact same thing, he politely turned them down." I replied, so very confused by Lawr's behavior, the other night he had been concerned with me, he had been gentle, today, he was something I didn't even know.

"Oi, Haruhi, what are you doing here?" the twins asked, completely ignoring my tear stained face and my existence, I stood up and attempted to exit the bathroom, "Why have you been hanging around Haruhi so much?" they asked in unison.

I didn't say anything, fearing that instead tears would escape again; I merely stared dully at the floor and waited for them to move.

"Hikaru, what do you think is wrong with him?" one twin asked the other.

"I dunno, maybe he's just being a _girl _about something." the other twin answered, obviously expecting to get a response from that comment, whether from training at home, or my depressed state, I wasn't sure which, I didn't react, I just wanted to get home, write something on my wrist, and then curl up under the covers and die, or sleep and never wake up, whichever came first.

The twins stared at me strangely, but Haruhi came and rescued me, "He's not feeling well, I'll take him to the nurse." she told them, they stared curiously, but said nothing as they moved aside for us to pass through.

She took me to the nurse and explained that I wasn't feeling well and so I just wanted to sleep for a bit, the nurse let me, so I crawled into the bed and closed my eyes, deciding that maybe I could sleep and never wake up here.

...:Later:...

I soon realized that never awakening again would have to be fulfilled back at home, the nurse woke me up when school ended, telling me I had to get home, and that I should eat something and get a good night's rest, she also said I was looking a bit pale, I wondered how she was able to tell that. I think she might have mentioned something about someone coming to see me, but I left the room before hearing all of what she said.

I arrived at home, I effortlessly made it through Grandfather's course, and when Grandmother asked if I wanted anything to eat, I declined, claiming to have had a big lunch at school, I hadn't even eaten since breakfast, but they didn't need to know that. I then dragged myself into the bathroom after feeding A'laa, and once again met with my good friend Razor.

* * *

crazy: YES! At long last I have conquered the brain blockage I was having with the chapter that I was working on, now I'll be working on either the last, or second to last chapter of this story. Now, I wonder if anyone will be able to guess who it was that visited Kushi in the infirmary? Well, on the other hand, I HAVE NO MORE FOOTBALL GAMES!!! XD Thank you football team for losing horribly at last Friday's game, with a score of 21-forty something, I thank you football team for being horrible, so that means two things, one, I can go to Friday karate class again, whoot, and also, I'll have a lot more time to write stories, yayeth for you all. Anyways, you guys know the drill, RER: Read, Enjoy, Reveiw


	13. Thought 13

...:Some Days Later:...

Apparently, Lawr just wanted to continue to slowly cause my death by going out with multiple girls in the school, and completely ignoring me, I never liked to think this of people, but he was a serious toastard, and I just _hated _it. I wanted to believe that maybe we could go through high school and college together, and then move to California and get married, or life partnered, whatever it's called, but he had obviously decided to fulfill his parent's wishes from beyond the grave and instead be straight. That toastard and I had even given our first times to each other, I did it because I loved him, and I thought he had too, we had been going out for two years, but it obviously hadn't mattered to him.

I felt dirty now, as if though every last memory of him was now covered in something gross, I curled up into a ball under the covers, after having gotten home from school, I went to my room and merely lied down in bed, at least now I could stay in bed all of tomorrow, on Monday, I would be forced out to face reality again. I lifted my heavy corpse, that was pretty much all it was at this point, out of my bed and dragged myself into the shower, I didn't bother to remove my clothes, I just set the water to scalding hot and sat underneath it. It was agony, my own emotional pain just completely drowned out the pain of the burning, hot shower, I couldn't feel it, so I grabbed the razor, and just as I was about to add yet another decoration for my wrist I heard a crash outside my window.

I hurriedly got out of the shower, slipped on some dry clothes, and completely forgetting to put my wrist bands on, I rushed outside to see what had happened to cause that crash.

...:Outside:...

Haruhi and the rest of the Host Club were merely walking to the grocery store when Haruhi happened to notice, just from the corner of her eye, that someone was sitting in the tree beside Kushi's house, and when she looked closely, she could see some red hair.

"Ah, Haruhi, what are you looking at?" Tamaki asked, wondering what his daughter like friend was looking at, so he turned to look at the tree to see someone push themselves out on the branch, use their jacket and the clothesline to reach the window, when they tried to open the window though, they lost their hold on their jacket and fell to the ground from the second story window. Not too soon after the person fell, Kushi rushed out of his house and approached the person, then just stood there staring at them for a bit before helping them up and turning around to go back into his house, but the person wasn't happy about that.

...:With Kushi:...

"No, Kushi wait." Lawr said, grabbing my wrist, not knowing that there was a newer decoration on it, which made inhale sharply, instead of being sympathetic, he glared at me, but he sighed and ended up instead pulling me into my own house instead of me leading him.

"Let go, there's a course you have to get through to enter the house, I'll go in, and you go home." I told him.

He didn't listen; instead he opened the door, lifted me into his arms, closed the door, and went through the course, all the while holding me. He ended up finishing it much faster than I ever had before, and that was his first time going through it, and he had been holding onto me while doing it; he always had to one up me when it came to anything physical, in academics though, I owned him, which, at least, was some consolation.

I ignored him and headed for the kitchen to run my cut under some water and then apply first aid to it, Lawr followed me, ignoring my body language that told him to get out. I was having difficulty as always when I tried to put on the bandages, so Lawr got up and wrapped them for me, I didn't look at his face, merely his hands, which were dirtied by my own, now gross, memories. When he finished up, instead of letting his touch linger on me, like I once had so long ago, I quickly pulled my wrists from his grasp.

"Get out." I told him, somehow keeping my voice steady even though I wanted nothing more than to break down again; he was being too cruel, one moment making me think we could go back to how we used to be, and the next making me do this to myself, just as he had all those years ago.

He didn't listen, he never did, instead he wrapped his arms around me, probably not caring that it would hurt me later, "I'm sorry." he suddenly told me, "I know I don't deserve forgiveness, I know you hate me and you have every right to, I broke the promise I made, I _hurt_ you, I deserve hell." he confessed, running his fingers through my hair, a motion which he always did subconsciously.

"Lawr." I started, about to tell him something, I didn't even know what it was I was going to tell him, when there was a crash and a few screams, we both rushed over to the front door, where we saw Haruhi closing the door, a group of six people, a very tall one was looking curiously at the holographic pendulums which swung by them, another was writing something down in a notebook, and the other four were standing confusedly in the middle.

Haruhi approached me and apologetically said, "When they saw you argue with him and he carried you in here, I couldn't stop them."

I looked at the Host Club, which I could only recognize since the twins and Tamaki were in the group before suddenly, very calmly, saying, "That toastard made me do all that shat when everything was just holograms." and I shook my head at myself, "Unbelievable, the only things that must have been real were the holes and the electrocutions." I complained while I went off into the kitchen and ranted even further while deciding to cook something to calm myself down. I seemed to have momentarily forgotten I still had a slight scar on my cheek from one of the other traps, but I remained blissfully ignorant.

"Shit, he's cooking." Lawr suddenly said, looking rather something akin to fear.

"I heard that, and just so you know, you're going to eat one whole helping by yourself!" I shouted at Lawr, while furiously working at whatever it was I was making.

Lawr paled at this, "Kushi, that's not nice." he said, I came and glared at him, "Right, I'll finish it all." he quickly said, then I went back to cooking, "May you all be starving, and willing."

"Why do you say that Lawr-san?" Haruhi asked, unsure whether to call him Air-san or Carson-san.

"He cooks way too much when he's angry." Lawr explained, having suffered the overly large meals that he had been forced to eat, "And if you don't eat at least half, well, that's not something that should be said aloud." several crashes and such were heard from the kitchen and Lawr rushed in there faster than thought possible, thinking something had happened to me, only to come back a few minutes later with what appeared to be parmesan cheese and spaghetti sauce in his hair, "He said that dinner should be ready soon, and you should all wash your hands, also we're having spaghetti, if you don't like it, then you die." Lawr told them, trying to get at least the cheese out of his hair.

Everyone decided that at that moment they all loved spaghetti.

...:Later:...

Dinner was tense to say the least, the portions were much more than any normal being could normally eat, but they all still genuinely complimented me on my cooking, except Lawr, he glared at me over his abnormally, large helping. When dinner was finished I went ahead to wash the dishes and told Haruhi to explain to the Host Club members what was currently happening.

I washed the dishes much more calmly then I had cooked, but I dropped one into the sink when someone placed their arms around me and settled their head on my shoulder, I didn't have to look to know who it was. Lawr merely stood there, saying and doing nothing, for some reason I felt like a house wife, I was the one that made dinner, I was the one that was upset, I was the one washing dishes, yep, I'm a housewife, or would it be househusband, you know what I'll go with home maker.

"Why?" Lawr suddenly asked, I didn't answer, not knowing what he was asking 'why' about, "Why are you cutting again?" he asked, holding my wrist as it went to grab another plate, and then grabbing the other. He rubbed the scars, but didn't look at them, for that I was thankful, he never looked at them, many of them newer than the last time he had seen them, he frowned at them, not liking what they reminded him of probably.

"It's your fault." I confessed, "What else would I do if my supposed boyfriend dies." I added, not mentioning that the first time I started to cut, about a year after he made me his friend, I told him it was because my aunt had died and I had been close to her, true, I had been depressed when she had died, but not enough to do this, only Lawr could make me do this.

The other students, mostly the girls, had found another reason to hate me, because I had stolen Lawr from them, I hadn't realized back then that I was the only thing stopping him from having any girlfriends or such. They told me that Lawr would go off to see them whenever he wasn't with me, and he told them how annoying I was, how like a hurt puppy, I would come begging to him, and they kept telling me other such things. The first time I had cut, was an accident, I was alone in the apartment my parents and I lived in, and I sliced my wrist against the kitchen knife I had been using, and I had loved the feeling it gave me, from then on though, I wore wrist bands, even after I had stopped cutting I wore wrist bands, out of mere habit.

He stared at me, shocked, he had never realized he was the cause, did he hate himself for it, or was he just surprised that I so pathetic as to cut myself over him?

"I'm so sorry." he said, burying his face into my shoulder and gripping me all the tighter to him, "I'm a fucking bastard, all I ever do is hurt you."

"No, you were my friend, and even if it was fake, you were my lover, that made me happy." I confessed, tears blurring my vision.

He suddenly flipped me around so that we were face to face, "No, that wasn't fake, that was real, I swear to God it was real." he told me, leaning to press his forehead against my own, "I'm sorry I lied to you, your parents, everyone, but I had to, for you." he told me, he saw the confused expression on my face and went on to explain, "Remember a few nights before the accident when I suddenly hung up on you on the phone?" I nodded, I had been annoyed when he did that, but he apologized for it and I let it drop, "That was because the Air family was calling me, they told me if I didn't do exactly as they said, they would kill you, I didn't want to do what they told me, but I didn't want you to die, it wasn't a good situation for me, either you die, or I do, so I died." he paused, wondering what to say next, "I'm sorry, I should really die now shouldn't I?"

"No." I said, grabbing his arm which was about to let go, "If you die then I'll really be sad." I told him, not looking at his face because I was embarrassed for admitting it.

He smiled at me and pulled my chin up for a sweet kiss which was cut short by someone clearing their throat, I felt my face heat up, and Lawr merely smirked at me, he was never fazed when someone saw us kissing unlike me, frick, I seriously am the girl in our relationship.

"I hope I'm not interrupting." Haruhi said, obviously not at all fazed by our display of affection, why was I the only one ever embarrassed, "But they want to know some things that I don't know." she explained, then left us alone.

Lawr then turned back to me and was about to kiss me again, but I put my hand between us, "You can take care of your hormones later, right now, we go explain." I told him, and then moved his arm so I could get out of his grip.

"You enjoy this, don't you, torturing me so evilly?" he asked, smirking at me, I rolled my eyes and smiled at what he said.

"No, I just do it unconsciously." I answered, grabbing his hand as we exited the kitchen, completely oblivious to the sudden sad look that passed over his eyes.


	14. Thought 14

_'Need to talk to you, meet behind school, also, can't believe you still have this number.'_

I now stood at the back of the school, waiting for Lawr who had sent me that text message, somehow after getting a new cell phone in Japan, I was still able to have the same number, and I wondered what it was he wanted to talk to me about.

"Kushi?" Lawr's voice asked as he rounded the corner, I smiled at him, but he looked genuinely nervous, he rarely ever looked nervous, only when something really, really, serious was going on.

"What's wrong?" I asked, Lawr instead of saying anything, hugged me and whispered something so quickly in my ear that I barely heard it.

"Don't read it until you are positive you're alone." he had whispered as he snuck a note into my jacket pocket.

I looked strangely at where he had been standing barely a few minutes before, before deciding to leave from the area myself. I soon traveled across an empty supply closet, I still had some time before getting to class, so I went in and opened the note and quickly read through it. I frowned at what was written, even in a different country and under the rouse of being dead, he couldn't have us known about, back in the States it was because of his parents, and even then we were planning on telling them, and here, it was because of our families, Air and Zhuul just aren't supposed to mix.

I crumpled the note and put it back into my pocket before exiting the closet and heading for class, the best I could do was just not cause problems for Lawr, it was the best I could ever do.

...:Later:...

I sighed as Haruhi and I hung out in my bedroom, technically we were supposed to be working on a project for class, but that didn't really matter and now Haruhi found that photo book my mom had snuck into my suitcase, wonderful, please note the use of sarcasm.

"Kushi, who is this girl?"

"Hm, oh, that's my sister, Aamira, actually, I think it might be her fault I'm gay." I contemplated, "Here, turn the page, see, she's fashion designer, but when we were younger, she had really wanted a sister, instead of me, so she tried to turn me into a girl by having me hang out with her all the time and dressing me up as one, my parents eventually made her stop doing that, but the damage was done." I added, pointing to a picture of a five year old me dressed in a frilly pink dress.

"Wow, now I'm actually kind of glad I don't have an older sibling."

"Hm, what are you talking about, being the baby is awesome, I mean sure, you're parents call you the baby all the time and treat you like one, but you can get away with murder since you have a scapegoat." I told her, remembering the wonderful times of having broken something and then blaming Aamira for it instead.

"Ah, so, what is this report supposed to be about again?" Haruhi asked, deciding not to continue on the subject anymore, I must have been giving a pretty creepy smile at my memories.

"Oh yeah, we're just supposed to write about someplace we would like to visit when we go to New York in a few weeks." I answered, not really looking all too forward to the school trip.

"Well, at least you can see your parents while you're there." she said, trying to make me feel happier.

"I guess, I'm more worried about running into old classmates."

"They couldn't have been that bad, could they?" she asked me, I sent her a look that said otherwise.

"When I was in first grade I got teased, second grade I was bullied, third grade derived swirlies, fourth grade brought forth group 'beat up Kushi' sessions, need I go on?" I questioned, knowing that she now got the idea, I did not like school.

"No, well, I'll be with you at least." she said optimistically, true, the teacher was putting people in groups of two, the twins were already an inseparable pair, so I didn't have to worry about Haruhi getting dragged off by them.

"Yeah, at least." I leaned back into my pillows, I actually wished I could have been with Lawr, but that wasn't possible, he couldn't because of our family rivalry, and then he would already have the entire female portion of the class asking him to be their partner. I think I'll manage one week without him, back in New York, I lasted ten years and two months without him, I'll be able to last one week, I hope.

...:A Few Weeks Later:...

"Ok, I'll see you in a week, bye Grandfather, Grandmother." I waved to them as I hurried to catch up with Haruhi so we could sit together on the plane, "Hey, you gonna be ok?" I asked her as we handed over our belongings to be scanned.

"Yeah, I should be." she answered, this would be her first time on a plane, I'd already been on a plane a few numerous times, mostly because Aamira wanted to see me, or have me model for her in a show, and she would come and drag me off to wherever it was, not at all caring about what plans I might have already had, I was almost held back a year thanks to her.

We soon came onto the plane, and I beat Haruhi to the window seat, luckily we sat on the right side of the plane, I always preferred leaning on my right side more than my left, even though I'm left handed, "Here, you'll want some gum." I told Haruhi, who took a stick and started chewing, I pulled out a stick and chewed on it too, soon we took off, and Haruhi and I avoided having our ears pop thanks to our gum, we soon started to play some cards, but quickly grew bored of it, and just alternately read a book, talked, and slept for the rest of the flight.

"Ah, always feel a bit dizzy when I get off a plane." I said as we walked off said plane, Haruhi held onto me, she also felt the dizziness I was talking about. I looked around the airport; it was packed, crowded, smelled of sweat and greasy fast food, yep, felt good to be home. "Feels good to be back in the Big Apple." I commented, smiling at nothing in general, and then I pulled out a pair of prescription sunglasses and switched my normal glasses for those.

"Why are you wearing those Kushi?" Haruhi asked me as she picked up her bags from the luggage claim.

"There are people here in New York that don't like me, remember that my dear." I answered, grabbing my own and then following the rest of our class to a bus, which then led us to a hotel.

"Alright, I've decided to randomly put you all into groups of five, that way I have fewer groups to check on, anyone wants to complain, they can go home or just stay here for the rest of the trip." Kazuka-sensei said, he went around grouping people together randomly, "And over here, we'll have Fujioka, Zhuul, both Hitachiin, and Air." after announcing our group he left to continue organizing the other groups, "Also, girls have the rooms that are even numbered, boys have odd numbers, if your group is of one gender, then please just stay in the same room, I really don't want to bother with having to see to it that each morning someone wasn't forgotten in another room." he then dismissed us to our rooms.

I got the feeling I would not enjoy this, Haruhi and Lawr, I could deal with, but the look the twins kept giving me, made my skin crawl.

* * *

crazy: Decided to give you all, a double update since I haven't gotten to update too much lately, well I'm either working on the last or second to last chapter of this series, but Christmas holidays are coming up, and I might visit my bro up in the North, so since I don't know if I'll have internet there, the updating over holiday break, maybe no, I only updated on Turkey Day cuz I hang out alone in my room that day, if you didn't read my whole little pledge to the Turkey Day loners on one of the final chapters of Love is... but the main point is, I've still got school too, like I gotta do this research paper on homelessness for English, hate the teacher, love the subject, don't like the paper's topic. Well, wish me luck on it anyway, and also on the state testing that we got once we get back from break, then the week after that I got my first gaurd competition, worst thing is, it'll be the first time that I do anything gaurd related where people will actually see me for longer than thirty seconds, so wish me luck on that too. Anyway, Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy Hanuahkah(however you spell it), Happy Kwanza(not sure if that's right either), and Happy Whatever-it-is-You-Celebrate-During-This-Month-If-You-Celebrate-Anything-at-All-and-If-You-Don't-Celebrate-Anything-Than-Happy-New-Year's. RER (Read, Enoy, Reveiw)


	15. Thought 15

Thought 15

"Kushi, why are we just laying here?"

"Because we're trying to lose Lawr and the others."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want the twins to know where I live and Lawr wouldn't want to go since my parents would recognize him."

"Really?"

"Yes, now let me think in silence woman." I said, removing my arm from where it had covered my eyes and staring at the clouds that floated softly overhead.

Haruhi and I were hiding out in Central Park, we planned to go and see my parents, once we got rid of the rest of our little group, which they were proving to be better at finding us once again, probably thanks to Lawr, but I still had the upper hand, I had the advantage of ten years, two months, and numerous hiding places throughout the city that Lawr knew nothing about, such as our current hiding place, deep in the trees of Central Park.

I finally lifted myself from the ground and took a quick look around, I didn't see any of the others nearby, so I motioned to Haruhi and we quickly walked off further from the park, we stopped in front of a nice looking apartment complex, but before we could climb the stairs on towards the apartment entrance, I was attacked from the side by a red blur, which managed to knock off my sunglasses, rendering me partially blind.

"Lawrence Andrew Carson, if you do not let go of me right now I will rip off your head and feed it to the lions at the zoo!" I hissed at him, using his full name.

He didn't bother to let go of my mid-section where he was hugging me, "Oh, I know you won't do that, and what, I can't hug you now, you've let me do much more than this before." he said, giving me a perverted smirk.

I felt my face heat up with embarrassment at what he said, "Never say that sort of thing again!" I shouted at him, smacking his head and making him let go of me, "Now, I am going to introduce Haruhi to my parents, you, are going to go off to the museum with the twins, we'll meet you there in an hour or two." I added, as I grabbed Haruhi and pulled her up the stairs with me, punching Lawr each time he tried to hold me again and instead drag me off somewhere with him.

I muttered some colorful things about him under my breath as Haruhi and I reached the door to the apartment that my parents currently resided in, I didn't even get to ring the doorbell before the door opened on its own. There stood a tall woman, about twenty four years of age, with long, black hair, big, brown eyes, skin as dark as my own, a fit body, and dressed stylishly.

The woman gasped when she saw me and then pulled me into a hug, "Oh, Kushi, I haven't seen you for so long, I was half convinced I would have to go all the way to Japan to see you, but instead my little Ku-bears decided he didn't like Japan and came home to me, oh, I'm so happy!" she gushed, moving and swaying as she hugged me into her boobs.

"Aamira, I don't like boobs, so let go dang it!" I shouted, somehow pulling myself out of my older sister's grasp.

"This is Aamira-san?" Haruhi asked, having had a slightly different idea of my sister.

"Unfortunately."

"Ku-bears, don't forget to introduce me to your little friend here, wait, friend, oh my God, you have a friend!" Aamira exclaimed happily, this time pulling both Haruhi and myself into a hug.

"Aamira, let go!" I shouted once more, pulling Haruhi out of her death grip once I was out myself, "Where're Mom and Dad?"

"Oh, they're somewhere." she answered, not bothering to let us in, "But hey, listen, you see, I have an upcoming show-"

"No." I replied, already knowing what she planned to ask.

"You didn't even hear about it yet."

"I don't care, the answer is no."

"I'll pay you." she told me, knowing I would change my mind for the right price.

"How much?"

"Five hundred for each outfit."

"Dresses six hundred."

"No."

"Six or you find someone else.

"Five fifty."

"Throw in fifteen percent of your own earnings and we have a deal."

She glared at me for a few minutes before sighing and nodding her head, "You drive a hard bargain little brother."

"Pleasure doing business with you." I replied, shaking her hand on the deal, "Now let us in, I want to see Mom and Dad."

"Fine, but do you really want to see Mom?"

"Good point, where's Dad?"

"Too late." she smirked before going inside and shouting "Mom, Kushi's here and he has a friend that didn't require summoning the dead and almost a year's worth of Dad's paychecks to pay for!"

"I swear, you use electricity to revive _one_ dead frog." I muttered, before fully realizing my situation, "I hate you and hope your next show fails."

"Not with you in it Ku-bears." Aamira smiled evilly as a sound that was very similar to that of a stampede suddenly made it known, and then a dark skinned woman with black hair and brown eyes appeared, armed with a camera and motherly behavior.

"Hi Mom." I said, hiding Haruhi and myself behind a doorframe, going back with Lawr and the twins didn't seem like too bad an idea right now.

"Hey, so this is where you were." a pair of voices asked, I suppose it's true, that whole speak of the devil thing, but now I regretted it.

Then a brilliant idea struck my brain, "Mom, these are my friends, Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin, this is Haruhi, but she doesn't matter, you can talk to the twins, while I go and find Dad so I can get him over here and introduce everyone." I then threw the twins to the sharks, which were my sister and mother, and Haruhi and I escaped to the office where my Dad was looking through some papers.

"So I hear you have a friend that won't cost me a fortune this time." he said, not bothering to look up from his papers.

"It was _one_ frog, and it didn't even live, it just twitched, stupid Dexter's Lab." I said, mumbling the last part under my breath, "But anyway, yes I didn't have to use the dark arts this time."

"That's always a good thing." he said and then got up and started to look out the window behind him, then he closed the window once more and settled back into his leather chair, "Well, since there are no flying pigs, I guess this means the world's going to end, which means I don't have to do this paper work."

"Ha ha, you're hilarious Dad." I replied sarcastically, "Anyways, we should avoid the front room."

"You have more than one friend, and you left them with your mother?"

"Well they're not really friends, they're more Haruhi's and they came on their own."

"Ah, very well then."

"Also, does Mom know about the, _family business_?" I questioned, earning myself a slight glare from my father.

"Grandfather force you into it?" he asked knowingly.

"Oh no, he decided to let his course force me into it."

"Damn that man, he could have killed you, son of a-"

"You know that's your own dad you're talking about."

"Exactly."

"Oh, so I can say that sort of thing about you too?"

"Remind your sister that she's grounded for a month for instilling that chivalrous attitude in you."

"Right, anyway we'd better get going, still have someone else waiting on us."

"Another friend?" he asked, "My boy, you're on a roll, get another one and I do believe we can send you into the Guinness book."

"He's not really a friend." I answered, deciding to ignore the rest of what my father said as we exited his office.

"Your dad seems nice." Haruhi stated, seeing where I gained most, really all, of my personality quirks from, most definitely not my mother.

"Mom, you can stop tormenting my friends with your camera, we have to get going now." I announced as I walked into the front room, saving the twins from my mother who, oh shat, showing them one of her numerous scrapbooks, "Which one is that?"

"Just the ones that show you helping me out." Aamira answered, smirking evilly at me.

"Our agreement is doubled, one thousand per outfit and eleven hundred per dress, and thirty percent of your profits."

"Why you-" Aamira started but our mother smacked her head and she came over to smack my own.

"If you insist upon acting like children then I will treat you as such, and I will pull out the belt." our mother threatened, making me scoot behind the closest thing, which happened to be Haruhi, and hide behind it, Aamira hid behind the chair she had sat in, we both knew our mother would fulfill her promise.

"I have to leave, Aamira, you can send me the info I need about that show, don't forget, our agreement was doubled."

"Yeah yeah, I know Ku-bears; it always ends up like that."

Our little group quickly escaped, completely unknowing to my sister who couldn't decide whether to smirk or wonder if she'd gone insane when she saw Lawr waiting for us at the bottom of the stair case and then place his arm around me, only for me to pinch him hard enough that he let go, Aamira settled on a confused smile and keeping what she saw a secret.


	16. Thought 16

I sighed while gazing up at the modern art we were supposed to be admiring, I had never been much for art that was only a bunch of randomly placed dots, and I was still upset with Lawr for making me lose my sunglasses, those were the only pair I had, now I was forced to wear my glasses. I could only hope my past school did not suddenly decide to take a school field trip to the art museum, speak of the devil, I just saw a class, with people I recognized, that weren't part of my own current school.

I snuck over into the African art exhibit, hoping I could blend in there; of course life could never be kind to me. I already saw some people whispering and pointing at me, where was Haruhi when I needed her, maybe they wouldn't have bothered me if I was with someone.

"Well well, if it isn't the Devil's own."

"Who, me or yourself?" I answered, barely recognizing the voice as one of my constant tormentors, Skye Delvins, she was a girl, and most of them were, because I had been so close to Lawr, who was pretty much every girl's dream boyfriend.

"That is so funny, not." she responded, flipping her fake blond hair, it was actually brown, it was ironic that she harassed me now, if I recalled correctly I once saved her from getting her butt kicked by some people she had made upset, "After you did your little disappearing trick, we all thought you threw yourself off the Empire State Building, too bad you didn't."

"Ah, yes, please, do forgive my rudeness for not dying." I replied dryly, suddenly finding myself very interested in the painting in front of me, the artist used a _lot_ of red in the painting.

"You know, it's your fault Lawrence died." she told me, striking a chord in my heart, I even knew that was the truth now, although there were a few complications, but still, "You had to go and turn him into a faggot like you, it's a good thing his parents put out that restraining order on you."

I was beginning to wonder if Skye counted as a girl and whether or not it really was rude to punch her, she barely qualified as human, but whatever she was, did she still qualify as a girl?

"Are you listening to me fag shit?"

I didn't answer; I had decided that even if she wasn't human, she still had the necessary baby making tools, so she was still a girl, which meant I still couldn't punch her, what sad news that was.

"Listen when I'm talking to you man whore!" she shouted, her hand heading towards my cheek, where I was expecting to hear a loud smack. I waited, still not turning my gaze from the painting; I wondered if Skye's brain was really so impossibly small that she didn't even know how to properly slap someone. I cautiously turned my head to see that Skye looked a little freaked out, because Lawr, who had somehow acquired a hoodie and a pair of sunglasses, had grabbed her hand before it touched my face.

"Touch him and I break your hand, bitch." he growled out as he pushed her away, grabbed me by the waist and walked off somewhere with me, once my brain, which had somewhat temporarily shut down with the familiarity of the situation, Lawr had often had to save me from those situations, started working again, I flipped out on him.

"Lawr, what is your problem?" I asked him, keeping my voice down, knowing that there were too many people here that might recognize him if I said his name too loudly.

"What, I just stopped her from slapping you, and instead you get pissed off at me?" he asked, wondering at the rationality of the situation.

"Yeah, and now everyone back there thinks I'm some sort of man slut because only a few months after you die I have a new boyfriend." I explained, using curse words without realizing it, the only time I ever used curse words was if I was seriously pissed off, this was not at all a good thing.

Lawr stared into my livid face, obviously thinking about something, I just couldn't tell, and normally I could read him like a book, there were only two circumstances in which I wouldn't be able to read his face, one, when he was being as serious as he could ever possibly be, or two, well two was something that left my face feeling red with embarrassment.

"Lawr?"

He grabbed my wrist, and still showing nothing on his face, pulled me off into the bathroom, and slammed me against the wall, "You know, when you look like that, I just can't help but want to rape you." he whispered into my ear, a lewd grin in his voice, his words leaving me with wide eyes and a hot face, just as they always did.

...:Later:..

A very satisfied Lawr exited the bathroom, looking pleased as punch, I on the other hand was clearly a bit ruffled, although to say I wasn't pleased would be far off target, on the other hand, to say I was still upset, now that would be an understatement.

"Ah, Kushi, there you are, I've been looking everywhere for you, where were you, and what happened to you?" Haruhi asked, looking strangely at my ruffled appearance, I felt my face heat up, but I didn't answer, I leaned against the wall, trying not to let on how weak my legs felt at that moment, I looked around for Lawr, dang it, he snuck off, the toastard.

"Remind me to kill Lawr when we get back to the hotel." I told her, _Once I can walk._ I added in my head, I then sat down on the ground, leaning my back against the wall.

"Are you sure you're alright Kushi?"

"Yeah, I'm just a bit tired; think I'll sit for a while." _Even though it's my butt that hurts._

"I'll get you some water." and with that she trotted off to the vending machine to buy me some water, leaving me to contemplate how to properly kill Lawr, one of these days I really won't be able to walk for a week, instead of just a day or two.

...:Later:..

I hurried into the hotel room that I shared with Haruhi, the twins, and Lawr, before the rest of them could even blink, Lawr must have been surprised that I could walk so fast after what had happened earlier, truthfully I was too.

I reached the hotel room, shut the door then locked it, and waited for Haruhi or the twins to come so I could let them in, Lawr would have to find some other group to room with for the night.

Haruhi was the first to come and I saw her before she came to the door, I quickly opened it, pulled her in, and shut and locked the door once more, lying in wait for the twins, completely ignoring the strange stares from her. The twins then came into view, with Lawr, I even more quickly, somehow, got the twins into the room and left Lawr locked outside. I finally plopped down onto the bed I had declared as my own and buried my burning face into the pillows, my face didn't even have to be burning right then for me to know it would begin to do so.

"Kushi, are you and Lawr-san fighting?" Haruhi asked to my unseen face.

"Not really." I muffled out, "It's just he did some stuff that annoyed me."

"Thanks for opening the door guys." Lawr's voice sounded, I immediately shot up, pushing all three of the males out of the room, and locking the door behind them, using the manual lock as well.

"Let them in, and you sleep out there with them too." I told Haruhi.

"What exactly did Lawr-san do to make you so mad?" she asked, I felt my face heat up at this question and turned around to go stuff my face back in the pillows, "Kushi, are you blushing?"

"...No." I lied, burying my face deeper into the pillows, wishing they could swallow me into a feathery bliss, where I would not be bothered with questions that had embarrassing answers.

"Kushi, please just tell me."

"Fine, but remember, you told me to tell you." I sighed and took a deep breath before answering, "Well I got mad at Lawr because of something else he did, then he dragged me off into the bathroom and pretty much raped me, although it isn't really possible to rape the willing." I mumbled the last part more or less to myself, "Oh, and then he just has to make sure that I can barely walk, yes, no one would definitely suspect something about us, what with my difficulty walking and his smugness, I swear, he's such a pervert." I complained, I turned to stare at Haruhi who merely stared back at me, "You aren't disturbed by this, are you?"

"Not really."

"Ah, that's good, because I remember there was one time when Lawr and I were supposed to be working on a report, and then he got all perverted and stuff, and honestly, I just wanted to finish the report, so instead, I grabbed the handcuffs he was trying to put me in and attacked him so that I could handcuff and gag him so he wouldn't bother me, but then Aamira walked into my room while I was doing that, and she was freaked out and nearly killed _Lawr, _for tainting my once innocent mind, I swear, that woman is insane." and then I went off, complaining about all the other stuff that Lawr had done that made me annoyed with much more than half the stuff he ever did to me.

Suddenly there was a knock on the balcony of our room, I cautiously approached the window doors and moved the curtain, to see a stupidly smiling and waving Lawr having somehow climbed up the four stories to our balcony.

"Let me in." he told me, his voice muffled by the glass.

"Don't feel like it." I replied, instead heading off to the bathroom.

"Let me in?" he asked Haruhi, who was debating on whether or not to do the right thing or make sure Kushi didn't practically kill her, when a knock came to the door. She went ahead and looked through the peep hole, to find Kushi's sister Aamira standing there, who was currently being distracted by the twins.

"Kushi, your sister is here." Haruhi told the younger boy, who immediately stopped brushing his hair, opened the balcony door, and soon afterwards confined Lawr to the closet, locking him in there and telling him if he wasn't quiet he would show the boy that he was a force much worse than the Air family, and then opened the hotel door.

"Hikaru, Kaoru, now why are you guys out here, shouldn't you have your key?" I asked, giving them a look that clearly said to play along.

"We forgot them here." Kaoru answered nervously, and soon after that Aamira launched herself at me with loving shouts of Ku-bears and 'I love you.'s.

"Oh, Ku-bears you have no idea how ridiculously happy I am to see you, anyway, I wanted to give you some more info on that fashion show." Aamira paused before saying something else, "And there's something I want to ask you, about that other guy you were with."

"What other guy?" I asked, I honestly didn't know what she was talking about.

"The one that's in the closet."

"Now Aamira, I am quite sure the twins may seem gay, but they're not, at least I don't think, are you?" I asked the twins, ignoring the glares they sent me.

"Oh please Kushi, I know they're about as gay as you are straight, but I'm talking about the one that's literally in the closet over there." Aamira clarified, pointing over to said closet where Lawr was hiding.

"What the heck are you talking about, why would a person be in that closet?" I questioned in return, a perfectly innocent look on my face, which almost fooled the others into believing that Lawr seriously wasn't in that closet.

"Ku-bears, I am your sister, and I know you better than you know yourself, which means I know you are lying, now, you will never lie to me again, what is with the guy in the closet?"

"He's very shy and antisocial, so he doesn't like people and locked himself in the closet when you came."

"Oh please Ku-bears, I'm sure I taught you to make up better excuses than that, and if you don't let him out, I will drag him out by force and then make you work for me, with no pay."

I stared at my sister for a few minutes before saying. "As I already said, he locked himself in there, there's no way to open the door." I insisted, this comment upset Aamira so much that she went off to open the closet door herself, 'Shat!' I thought, my eyes widening as she tore the door open, she had not been that strong the last time I saw her, she was definitely getting in some extra hours at the gym.

"Um, hi?" Lawr responded, staring at my sister fearfully, she didn't really like him all too much, what with the whole ruining her plans of setting up dates for her little brother and having him fall in love with the person of her choice, she really was too controlling when it came to me.

"What the fucking hell is this shit?" Aamira asked, glaring at Lawr with an unbelievably frightening glare.

"Shit?" I answered, hoping that the answer would calm her down, even if only just a little.

"No, shit is too kind a word when referring to this thing, it has a name that suits so much more, and that is, lying, back stabbing, supposedly dead, hurtful, bastard, douche bag, sorry son of a fucking bitch, boyfriend of my unfortunate little brother, of course it also has a much shorter name, and that is _Lawrence Carson_." Aamira hissed out, glaring even harder at Lawr.

"Ok, Aamira, I won't deny it, this is Lawr's, cousin, Laurent, they look like twins, I know, I didn't want to you to meet him because I knew this would happen, you would automatically suspect that he was, was." I suddenly stopped talking to take a few shaky breaths and to make sure Aamira saw my teary eyes, as a finishing touch I brought a hand up to wipe at my eyes, allowing a few tears to spill out.

Aamira automatically brought me into a hug, "Oh Ku-bears, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry, oh my God, I am such a horrible person, making my most beloved little sister cry."

"Sister?" I suddenly asked, annoyed that she would still call me that.

"I'm sorry, I meant beloved little brother, but still, how dare me, I deserve to be ignored completely by you!" Aamira continued, now crying herself.

I wiped off the rest of my self brought tears, yes, I could cry on command, I learned this was the only way to get my sister to believe any lie I could ever tell her. Actually if I was crying while telling her that she was really Bigfoot, she would be ready to go off to the Canadian forests, grow out all her body hair, and allow vague photos be taken of her, my tears were truly that convincing for her.

"Oh shoot, I have to be going." Aamira complained after looking at her watch, "I'll talk you later Ku-bears." she told me, kissing my cheek, once her back had turned I wiped her lipstick off my face and closed the door to the hotel room on her.

Lawr smirked at me, he seemed to be really trying not to laugh, and if he knew what was good for him, he wouldn't say anything either.

"She still calls you Ku-bears, do tell me, why can't _I_ call you Ku-bears?"

I glared at Lawr, before I walked off to one of the rooms, which was Lawr's, closed the door, locked it, then showed the key to Lawr, before placing it in my pocket, "You're sleeping on the ground tonight." and I walked off to my own room, closing the door on the apologizing Lawr's face, and locking it immediately afterward.

"Kushi, I said I was sorry thirty times already." he said through the door.

I paid him no mind, wondering whether or not he would ever realize he also had the key to his room on his person, he probably never would unless someone told him.

* * *

crazy: Yep, we really got to see Lawr's perverted side here, anyways, sorry about not updating, even though the furtherest from home I went was across the border, which is like less than twenty minutes away, so yeah sorry. Hmm, also Happy New Year Everyone! Uh, let's see, oh yeah, in about two weeks or so, I will be in my first gaurd competion show of the season, wish me luck on that, and also on my upcoming benchmarks and semester exams, and the homelessness research paper that I still need to do that's due Friday, wish me a lot of luck on that. Hmm, well, I just found out today that I'm on the verge of having gingivitus because I don't take well enough care of my teeth, so my sugar intake is being limited, oh curse the cruel world, also, there are only three things that seriously scare the crap out of me, what lurks in the dark, heights (only under specific circumstances, like climbing a tree is ok and looking down from the Sears Tower too, but standing on the ridge of the Grand Canyon, not happening), and finally, the dentist. My mouth still hurts even though it's been like ten or eleven hours, and I only got my teeth cleaned, and then I have six cavities, damn you world! Anyway, make me feel happy and RER, Read, Enjoy, flipping REVIEW already!


	17. Thought 17

"It's good to be going back to Japan."

"Why do you say that Kushi?"

I looked over at Haruhi, currently we were sitting in the plastic chairs that they have in the lobby of the air port, waiting for our flight, so far it had already been delayed another hour, if it was delayed anymore then we would have to try and find somewhere to stay for the night and get another flight for tomorrow.

"New York may be where I was born, but only a few of those years was I actually happy." I answered, thinking about the eleven years I had spent mostly alone.

She smiled a bit sadly at me, but then the twins came and stole her away, leaving me alone, obviously Lawr wouldn't be able to come and save me, we aren't supposed to really know each other, and he was currently preoccupied with some girls. I leaned back in my seat, just staring at the ceiling and hoping that when I got back A'laa wouldn't be dead.

"Well, well, if it isn't the man whore."

I sighed, squeezing my eyes shut, wishing that that voice was fake, just another of the numerous ones that had always taunted me, I remembered changing schools three times because of how much I was teased, each time the students would find something to make fun of me for, or find out about my eyes and bother me about it.

"Man whore, I'm talking to you."

I just squeezed my eyes shut more tightly, before finally opening them, how horrible, it wasn't me just going crazy, Skye was there. Then I felt a sudden sting to my face and my head whipped to the side.

"Listen when I'm talking, man whore."

I shifted my head to face her, but did nothing about the stinging mark on my face, or the other people who had started to stare after hearing the slap, but I paid them no mind, I only stared blankly at Skye.

"Heh, it's a good thing you were even banned from the cemetery, wouldn't want you vandalizing Lawrence's grave." she sneered, "You know, I'm curious, is it true that Mr. Carson hit you when you told him you were a queer, and even made his son one?"

I made no movement to indicate anything of an answer, although the answer was yes, Mr. Carson had indeed been outraged when I had confessed that to him, the scar from the stitches I had to get proved that. He had punched me in the face, and I had fallen onto an edge, what type, I forget. I remember that my parents wanted to press charges, but I forced them not to, I understood that Mr. Carson had been upset. Although getting a restricting order that keeps me from even entering the cemetery where many of my own relatives are buried, is a _bit_ over the top.

I felt another slap to my face, Skye was obviously annoyed with my reluctance to say anything at all, I merely continued to stare blankly though, completely uncaring to how everyone stared, doing nothing about my being attacked. Heh shows how kind rich people like this really can be.

"Fucking man whore, say something!"

"Excuse me, but Kushi is my friend, so would you stop talking to him?"

I stared over at Haruhi briefly, well, at least I could always count on her, but Skye was pissed off enough as it was, Haruhi was just adding gas to the fire by calling me her friend.

"Wow, even a little faggot like you can turn other people into faggots, guess I shouldn't be so shocked." Skye told me, turning from Haruhi, who she sneered at, back to me, a smug look on her overly made up face.

I stole a quick glance over at Lawr, who looked completely unfazed by any of this, or would have if not for the fact that he clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles were white and I could see a faint trace of red underneath his fingernails.

"Stop talking to him." Haruhi told her again, glaring at her this time, Skye then turned her attention to Haruhi and lifted her hand to slap her, I moved quickly and knocked her over.

"Ugh, get this bastard off of me!" Skye screeched, I didn't move from where I was, pinning her wrists to the floor and glaring at her with a calm, but obviously livid face.

"Don't touch my friends." I growled at her, before moving off and heading to the entrance gate, our flight had just come in and we had to leave. I was more than pleased to do so.


	18. Thought 18

"Can't believe I'm eating in the bathroom, haven't done this since second grade."

I sighed to myself, I really was just a pathetically weak sort of person, and Lawr kept texting me asking about what exactly had happened after he "died" so much to the point where I convinced my grandparents to get me a new phone with a different number. Now I ate in the bathroom because I couldn't handle the looks anymore, scorning or sympathetic, I just couldn't take it. I took another bite of my barely eaten sandwich, the bell would ring soon and I had only had three bites of my sandwich and a sip of my soda.

I sighed tiredly before tossing my lunch and checking if there was anyone outside the bathroom, as I walked towards the classroom, still fifteen minutes before the bell rang, I checked my cell phone for any messages, so far only Aamira knew my new number, and she was already using that to her advantage. I had twenty new texts, ten of them saying how much she missed me or loved me, the other ten merely chain letters, and she left me one new voicemail. I punched in the voicemail password and listened to it, then, completely stopping in my tracks, I called her back.

In something of a part shocked, part frightened voice I asked, "What?"

...:The Next Day:...

"I hate you."

"But Ku-bears, I love you!" Aamira answered, pinching my cheeks as she said this, yes, it was a nightmare, or perhaps dream, come true, my sister was in Japan, "Besides, it looks so much better on you than it did on that other model, no way, she was too ridiculously skinny, I mean she made a tooth pick look fat, I swear."

"Really, cause I don't think it accentuates my waist eno-see what you've done to me?!" I shouted at her, upset that I was talking fashion with my sister, especially since I was dressed up in an evening gown.

"Oh, but I think you're right, it needs to be more, fwah, not uwah, fwah." I shall forever wonder what my sister means with those words, but either way, she turned me round and made a few last minute stitching and viola, it looked even better.

"I guess this is good, don't forget." I started, but Aamira interrupted me, finishing my sentence.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, eleven hundred for each dress." she rolled her eyes at me, but continued working the last bits and pieces of the outfit, "There we go, you look so beautiful, like the little sister I always knew you were,." she said, turning me around once more so I could see myself in the mirror, "See, this is why I tried so hard to make you a girl, you make a much better girl, than you do a boy."

"Shut up Aamira." I told her, glaring at her, it was her fault that most everyone in elementary school always stared at me strangely when I played dolls with the girls instead of sports with the boys.

"But Ku-bears." Aamira said, following me as I went out of the changing room so that she could show off the dress I wore, but I ended up bumping into someone right outside the door.

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you ok, I didn't mean to do that, I'm sorry." I told the person, helping them get up, they, looked ridiculously familiar, what with the short, reddish hair, yellow eyes, and mischievous face.

"Ah, Mrs. Hitachiin, I'm so sorry, my brother bumped into you, he can be like that sometimes." Aamira said, staring at the woman with a look that I knew meant she admired this person, now that I recalled, this person's clothing was what inspired Aamira to become a fashion designer.

"Your brother, I thought he was your sister." she said, yep, this just_ had _to be Hikaru's and Kaoru's mom.

"I know, he's just so beautiful, all thanks to my influence, and makes my clothing look gorgeous, but then again, he could make a paper bag look gorgeous." Aamira bragged, how was it that she would always be so modest about her designs, but bragged and boasted about me?

"Yeah, can we get going now?" I asked, not at all caring for my rudeness, which earned me a slap in the head, "You shouldn't abuse your models."

"When they're my little brother I can." she replied, the look in her eye easily told me my pay would be in danger if I said anymore, so I sighed and stood there as Aamira spoke more with the twins' mother.

Mrs. Hitachiin suddenly turned her attention to me, "Your name is Kushi right?" she asked, to which I nodded my head, "Ah, so you're the one that my sons keep complaining to me about."

"The twins talk about me behind my back?" I asked sarcastically, "Now isn't that rude?" I said even more sarcastically.

"You're funny Zhuul-san, and you look better in a dress then the twins did when they were little."

"I know that was meant as a compliment, so I won't say anything." I replied, then she and my sister went on to talk about something or other and I went off to find something to eat, thank goodness for my having a fast metabolism.

I squirmed a little, feeling as if something was wrong, but tried to pay it no attention, it was probably just me being weird, and I would have kept thinking that, if I didn't feel blood suddenly spurt out of my face and a gunshot some seconds after, followed by a few more. I hid behind a nearby wall as the rest of the attendees panicked, I looked myself over, a bullet had grazed my cheek that explained the blood there, and I already had two other gunshots in my arm and one of my legs, blood seeped out of the wounds and already I felt woozy, the world darkened soon afterwards and my head hit the tile floor.

Crazy: Yes people, I did not die, I am perfectly alive and well, for now, school might kill me though. We recently started our second semester at my school, like I'm sure many of you did as well, and now I have classes that actually give me homework, all but one of my classes gives me homework almost every day, these classes are math, French, and world geography. Anyway, school is now getting to be a problem, limiting my computer time, but on the sunny side, my laptop's internet has finally been fixed, no more using my sister's Hello Kitty stickered laptop, instead I can use my own Batman and iPod apple stickered one. So anyway, the main point is, I'm having trouble with not only school, but some brain blockage and the desire to read a good book that I got just the other day, Wicked, so, it'll take a while before I post again, specially since I need to make sure that I find the product code for the Microsoft program on my laptop, otherwise I'll only have twenty three more documents that I can use, so the next update is currently unknown. Anyway, good luck to the rest of you school going readers, just another four months until freedom, for some of us, (others might have a few more, but whatever) and to those of you that don't have school, good luck with whatever the hell it is you do!


	19. Thought 19

Haruhi sat in the plastic chair next to Kushi's bed, they were in a hospital, and although it had already been three days, Kushi had yet to wake up. The doctors had said he only suffered from blood loss, but still, did he have to sleep so long?

"Hey, he's still asleep?"

Haruhi looked over at Aamira who had been coming in regularly for the past few days, but was only able to stay for a few hours because the police were still investigating the shooting, and why only Kushi was targeted. Haruhi already had a good idea as to why, and she knew that Kushi's grandparents probably also thought the same as she, but nothing could be said about the reason.

"Yeah." Haruhi answered, turning back to Kushi, whose life support continued to beep with an almost annoying regularity.

They both stayed silent and sat together for about two hours before Aamira had to leave again for more police questioning, Haruhi had nothing else to do and merely stared at Kushi, more specifically at the wrist she knew was hidden underneath the hospital blanket.

Of course when the doctors were examining Kushi they had to remove his wrist bands, and he couldn't refuse since he was unconscious, and Haruhi had been surprised when they asked who Lawr was. They said that the name had been cut into both his wrists; the only difference between the carvings was that the one on the left wrist was done a bit shakily, probably because Kushi was left handed.

Haruhi had not heard from Lawr since the day before the shooting, he hadn't even come to school, Haruhi wondered why, but merely believed it was because he wasn't even supposed to like Kushi, so it would be bad if the Air family knew he was visiting the heir of their enemy. She sighed, wishing her friend could have an easier life than this, but brought her head up when she heard the door open.

There stood a doctor, maybe, he seemed a bit shifty, with a medical mask on his face, and then Haruhi realized why he was so shifty when he spoke, "Haruhi?" it was Lawr in disguise, he pulled the medical mask off his face, "How is he?" he immediately asked, rushing over to Kushi's side and moving a piece of the unconscious boy's hair out of his face.

"He's been sleeping for the past three days, because of blood loss." she answered.

"Goddamnit, this is why they locked me up then." he murmured, then explained it out loud to Haruhi, "The Air family had me locked in my room for the past four days, and this must be why, they didn't want me to interfere."

Haruhi could have sworn she heard him growl, probably at the thought of the Air family who had dared to hurt Kushi, she could easily see that Lawr greatly loved Kushi, to risk punishment by not only the Air family, but also by the law for impersonating a doctor to make it into Kushi's hospital room so that the Air family wouldn't know where he was, he had to really love him.

"Lawr-san, you shouldn't be here, what if the Air family finds out you're here, or what if another doctor comes in, then he'll know you're not really a doctor and you'll get into even more trouble?"

"Do you think I really care about that Haruhi?" Lawr asked, caressing Kushi's face like it was something delicate, his face somehow looked pale, "I could care less about what the law or the Air family thinks, I just want to know he's safe."

"Lawr-san, when did Kushi start cutting himself?" Haruhi suddenly asked, knowing she wouldn't be able to get Lawr to budge on the other topic.

"About three years ago, when his aunt died." he answered, "He stopped after I intervened, but then he started up again after I "died"."

"If he started when his aunt died, then why do his wrists say your name?"

Lawr suddenly looked over at Haruhi in shock and asked, "What?"

"He cut your name into his wrists, wouldn't you know that?" she asked, Lawr shook his head and looked at Kushi's face sadly.

"No, the first time I saw his cuts they were only lines, and after that Kushi told me never to take his wrist bands off, because he didn't like to see his cuts and I didn't like seeing them either."

"I knew it was really you."

Both Lawr and Haruhi looked over at the door where Aamira now stood, glaring at Lawr lividly, and she had her grandparents in tow. Haruhi could already see that this would not end well.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing here?" Aamira asked, Lawr didn't even bother to say anything, because she didn't even let him, "Why the hell do you think you can suddenly wake up from the fucking dead and bother my little brother even more, hell, why did you ever bother him in the first place? I have half a mind-"

"You don't even have half a mind." Hakim suddenly said, making Aamira shut up and glare at the old man, "Stupid, little girl, why ask him so many questions if you do not plan to let the Air explain himself, personally I want to hear what the boy has to explain himself." he looked over at Lawr, "And if you are willing to suffer punishment from not only the law but your own family, then you are obviously not a true Air, so I will allow you to continue to speak to Kushi even after this."

"Grandfather!" Aamira shouted in shock.

"Shut up Aamira, I swear, you're just like Fatin was." he told her, speaking of their dead daughter.

"No, Hakim, Fatin actually knew when to shut up." Sekhmet finally said, "May she rest in peace."

"That's true Sekhmet, now, Lawr, correct?" he asked, to which Lawr nodded, "Please, tell me, if you care for my grandson so much, then why did you not come to see him sooner?"

"You think I didn't try old man?" Lawr asked, glaring at him, "I haven't slept or eaten at all in the past four days, all I was doing was trying to find a way out of my room, and then once I was out of that I had to get out of the house before anyone could realize I was missing, but I could care less about that, I just needed see Kushi."

Now that Lawr had mentioned it, he did look a little worse for wear, the bags underneath his eyes were very pronounced, and his face seemed much more sunken in, he really hadn't eaten or slept in the past four days.

Hakim stared silently at Lawr's serious face before nodding his head, "Very well, I can see that you are not lying, and Aamira, this whole situation goes far beyond anything that you can understand, Kushi would understand because he knows the stories we told you are truth, you on the other hand do not." he did not let her say anything before he continued, "If you wish to say something, learn about our family history first, this is why Kushi is the heir and not you, he was willing to learn the history and believe it, he thinks before he speaks, you on the other hand would get yourself killed on a level D mission, Kushi has already taken on level A. Now, I want you to shut up and stay that way when the adults are talking, this civilian knows more of the situation than you do." Hakim finished, gesturing towards Haruhi, and having finished scolding Aamira he turned to Lawr, "Please, take care of Kushi for us while Sekhmet and I teach our granddaughter a thing or two." and with that, they left, having to practically drag Aamira from the room.

"Wow, I never thought I would live to see the day that Aamira would be bitched out like that." Lawr said after a few minutes of silence, then sat down on the ground next to Kushi's bed, "You can leave, I'm going to stay here a while longer," he was interrupted by a long yawn, "Just, just gonna, gonna rest." he didn't even get to finish his sentence before he fell asleep.

Haruhi smiled a bit at him, and then took off her jacket and put it over him before sitting back down in the plastic chair again, she understood why Lawr merely clonked out like that, he was really tired, who wouldn't be after going four days without any food or sleep?

Then she looked at the door which she heard suddenly creak open, she stood up from the chair and gripped it, ready to use it as weapon if needed, no one else should have been coming, not even any doctor, not for another hour anyway, she was ready for the worst if need be.


	20. Thought 20

The door opened and Haruhi discovered she had no reason at all to be scared, it was just the Host Club, who were already being quite loud and Haruhi told them all to shut up.

"Eh, but why?" Tamaki asked in a much more quiet voice.

"Lawr-san is sleeping; he hasn't slept or eaten at all in the past four days." Haruhi explained, and everyone stared confusedly at her, she had forgotten that they weren't really up to date on the whole situation.

"Could you all shut up?" Lawr asked from the ground, glaring through tired eyes at them, "Like she said, I haven't slept in four days because I was trying to escape from my own house and the family thought it would be hilarious to electrocute every single door and window, in my room, I nearly died from laughter when I learned this the hard way, now shut up." and he passed out again, and mumbled things in his sleep.

Hunny went up to him and asked, "Ne ne, Lawr-san, are you really asleep?"

"Yes." he replied, it was now evident that Lawr talked in his sleep.

"Do you normally talk in your sleep?"

"Only when I'm stressed or worried."

"Does Kushi know you sleep talk?" Haruhi asked, now getting in on the questioning.

"Yes, he helps me distress when I do." Lawr slept peacefully for a few minutes more before his eyes suddenly snapped open and he entered a fighting position, "Everyone get out, and I want you guys to take Kushi with you."

"Lawr-san, what is it?"

Lawr slapped his face a bit to wake himself up, "My family is here," he yawned before continuing, "that's why I came in the first place, they plan to kidnap Kushi, and then kill him, I'm not gonna let that happen." Lawr swayed a little but righted himself before he could fall.

"But Lawr-san, you can't fight them alone, not like this."

"No one else can fight them, unless you suddenly know a group of magnificent fighters that disarm people." Lawr replied.

Haruhi's mouth twitched a little, because there happened to be two martial arts experts behind her and she knew that the twins, Kyouya, and Tamaki also knew how to fight to some degree, "Everyone in this room, besides me, can fight." she answered.

"Oh, well that sure," Lawr yawned, "helps a lot." he looked at everyone in the room, "I must warn all of you, they will have guns, they will have more experience, and they will kill us if they have to, I'm not in the best condition, and that plus that we have two useless people doesn't exactly help either."

Lawr yawned and then turned to Haruhi, "Here, I stole a few of these before getting out, you stay near Kushi, and if anyone that isn't us comes near you, use it." he told her, handing her a gun, after he turned the safety off for her, "If you happen to accidentally shoot it, at least shoot it out the window, or at someone that is the enemy," he yawned, "we can't afford to have casualties on our side, they're going to outnumber us."

Then he turned to everyone else, yawned and handed them the guns he still had, showing them how to remove the safety, "Use it only if you have to." and then he faced the door, ready for whatever came out of it.

Instead of coming through the door, it came through the window, a small, metallic can that emitted a cloud of gas.

"Shit!" Lawr shouted, covering his mouth to try and not inhale the gas, but too late, he felt even woozier than he already was, and he could see it was affecting the others too, "Knockout gas." was the last thing he said before falling to the ground with the others.

"Ow, I swear, I'm never going four days without food again." Lawr murmured, and then looked around in shock, this was most certainly not the hospital room, and then he remembered why, he'd been kidnapped by the Air family, and now he was in the dungeons, actually, it wasn't really a dungeon, it was more like a basement and right now it had a stone in the middle where the still unconscious, and now tied up, Kushi had his head lain, "Kushi!" he shouted, trying to move, but only to find out that he was chained against the wall. He looked over along the wall and saw the rest of the club members chained as well, Haruhi, Mori, and Kyouya were awake and the rest of the group was just waking up.

"Nice to see everyone is awake now."

They all turned to see a silhouette outlined by the light emitting from the door, then more subordinate looking people entered and closed the door behind them, allowing them to see that the silhouette was a man dressed in a nice suit, with dark hair, and a moustache.

Lawr glared at him, "They," Lawr said, gesturing towards the host club, "Have nothing to do with this, let them go."

"Now, now, Lawr, they do have so much to do with this, you see, this Zhuul scum's grandfather lets them know about the society, when he really should have killed them, so I'll do it for him." the man said, and smirked at his prisoners before continuing, "And also for you Lawr, you see, we have the Zhuul scum completely knocked out for the next week with elephant tranquilizer, but he's not even going to get to wake up again, because we're going to kill him, and each and every one of your friends, so you can learn a lesson." the man then walked over to Kushi, who slept peacefully, completely unaware that death was soon approaching.

"Carney, you bastard, let him go!" Lawr shouted, trying and trying as he might to get out of his chains, he ignored the stinging sensation he felt from the bite of the chains against his wrists, he ignored the fluid he felt dripping down his arm, he merely focused on getting out of the chains, even if it meant tearing off his own wrists in the process.

Carney looked up from where he had a gun pointed at Kushi's head, and glared at Lawr before he smirked again, "Carney, isn't it such a good name, for truly, I am victorious in everything, I gained the highest position in the Air family, I've beaten numerous police and other art thieves, and yet you must be the most annoying little _thing_I have ever come across, I mean, I personally selected you to inherit the Air family line, I was honored when I was selected, but you aren't, maybe this will teach you to accept what you get, and this little fag is definitely not what you get." and Carney then turned back to Kushi.

Lawr, had been very silent the entire time that Carney had been talking, which made Haruhi look over at him, only to discover that his head had dropped uselessly, he appeared unconscious, now twitched a little, before there was a sudden tearing sound, unlike anything that anyone in the room had heard before, except maybe Carney and his cronies, but even then, they hadn't heard anything quite like it before. Everyone was soon lost in a large, deep, and palpable cloud of dust, leaving most everyone coughing and choking, but suddenly came the sounds of punches, kicks, grunts, and groans of pain, soon followed by the thuds of fallen enemies.

The dust finally cleared, and there stood Lawr, standing straight across from Carney, but there was something off about him, perhaps it was the chains that were still on his wrists, but the links lead to small pieces of the wall which he had somehow been able to rip them out of the wall, no, it was most definitely because, Lawr's eyes, were no longer his own, they were the color of freshly spilt blood.

"Let her go." Lawr said, yet it was not even his own voice that spoke, it was instead someone else, a person with a much deeper and smoother voice, like velvet, not like Lawr's which was something rougher, a tone lighter.

Carney did not seem half as disturbed by this predicament as the rest of the people in the room were; instead he merely spat out, "And why should I?"

Lawr said, nothing, but merely glared a while longer before smirking, "A'laa, please, would you demonstrate to this fool as to why he should let her go."

This confused everyone, Haruhi was quite sure that A'laa was still at Kushi's house and yet, here was Lawr, who Kushi had told her never once quite got along with A'laa, suddenly demanding A'laa to appear. Then something green, just barely noticed by the human eye, made itself known, around Carney's neck, the green thing, elongated and made itself ten times it's original size in merely a few seconds, and yes, it was most certainly A'laa.

"Now, I will take her, and these people as well, we will peacefully leave, or A'laa will eat each and every one of you, I am most certain he is very hungry." Lawr smirked, as A'laa's tongue flicked out into Carney's face. Carney's face whitened and he nodded his head, watching Lawr as he stooped down to pick up Kushi and hold him bridal style easily, A'laa also slithered down from Carney's neck and onto Lawr's shoulders, A'laa had shifted to the size of a python, and yet Lawr seemed not to register his weight. The members were unchained from their places on the wall and followed Lawr down the hall, he walked down the corridors with a familiar gait, yet the redness of his pupils did not change.

The entire group was silent, except for the twins when they called for a ride to Kushi's place, in the limo Lawr took one side of it all for himself and laid out the rest of Kushi on it, the entire car ride would have been silent as well, if not for Haruhi who finally gained the courage to speak.

"Who are you?" she asked, making the red eyed Lawr turn from his gazing out the window and absent twirling of Kushi's hair, to stare at Haruhi.

"I am most certainly not Lawr." he answered, and continued with his response, "I am Kushi Zhuul, King of Thieves."

* * *

crazy: Sorry, I'm so bad about updating and actually getting to writing, I know I'm kind of making excuses, but they're rather viable ones, first, last week, an ex-friend of mine had accused me of bullying her to the point of harassment and even threatening her, when I had barely even seen, much less spoken to her, since the start of school, and she had actually told one of the police officers at our school and they were going to carry out charges on me, but then the charges were dropped. And the day that they had called me to the office to tell me that I had been accused of this by her, I went and apologized to her for the few times that I did punch her, but those were fake punches, and I fake punch and kick all my friends, that's how I play around, but then my mom and dad went to the meeting the next day with my ex-friend's parents, and my mom told me that apparently she had said that instead of apologizing to her, I had threatened her with another friend of mine who was in wrestling, to be careful since I knew jujitsu. I don't even know jujitsu, I know karate, and yeah, I know a person in wrestling, but I haven't seen her since last semester. The worst part of all this is, my other friends whom I eat lunch with, also let her eat with us, so I just try to ignore her as politely as possible, it's kind of hard when instead I just wanna get up and eat by myself rather than with her, and then I feel ridiculously stupid about having ever trusted her and having had her as my first friend when I moved to Texas. Also, I was kind of asked out for Valentine's Day, but the guy that asked, is a guy friend of mine, and he's already told me he likes me, but I don't like him, so, I just declined saying my parents would never let me go out anywhere with only another guy, which is true. So, this year, Happy Single's Awareness Day to allof you, all you single people, buy yourselves a box chocolate, enjoy your singledom. RER, Read, Enjoy, Reveiw


	21. Thought 21

The limo seemed to take on a whole new tone of silence, as the red eyed Lawr, instead turned out to be Kushi's, great-great-great-great-great grandfather, the original King of Thieves.

Kushi, the awake one, gazed at the half confused, half shocked faces around him before he elaborated, "I have been reincarnated, many times, but only within my own family, but I was never truly awakened, I almost awoke not too long ago, but it was not quite time, this is the first time I have been reincarnated outside my own family."

"You told Carney-san to let go of 'her', but Kushi is a boy?" Haruhi asked, still quite confused by this whole ordeal.

Kushi looked down at the unconscious one before looking back up, and lightly smirking, "That is because my lover is here."

"How can you be sure of that?"

"A'laa was with him, I won A'laa off of a sorcerer back when I was alive, and before I died, I ordered him to protect Liadán, where ever she went, and of course, he found her, and I know I can trust his judgment." he patted A'laa's head, who had come out, in his large python shape, at the mention of his name, he seemed content with the praise.

"Liadán?"

"Yes, my lover, much the same thing that just happened was how I died, although, I was the one whose head was chopped off, I am not sure how Liadán died though, I suppose I shall ask her once she awakens." and he caressed Kushi's sleeping face like it was something delicate.

Haruhi could most certainly see the similarities between this Kushi and Lawr; they both twirled their lover's hair, and had the same face when they were serious, although Kushi seemed to be more serious more often than Lawr.

"Where exactly are we, I do not believe I have ever seen this text in Cairo before?" he suddenly asked, looking curiously out the window at the passing by signs.

"We aren't in Cairo, this is Japan." Haruhi told Kushi, the others waited for his reply and were a bit surprised by it.

"Oh, so there's been new cities added in Egypt since my last life, but still, that doesn't quite explain the writing."

"No, we aren't even in Egypt; we are over ten thousand kilometers from Egypt." Kyouya told him, Kushi remained silent, his red eyes staring in something like disbelief at Kyouya.

"I'm sorry, but why is any part of the Zhuul family, _not_ in Cairo?" Kushi asked, glaring a bit at him, as if though Kyouya had just insulted him.

"It's true; when Kushi's dad was born they had to leave Egypt because the Air family, at least that's what I've heard, ratted out the Market to the police there." Haruhi explained, since Kushi, the unconscious one, had told her about it once he had found out the true cause behind his father's leaving Cairo, his birthplace.

Kushi, the one in Lawr's body, now stared at Haruhi, "What?" he asked, his jaw remaining open a bit, "I knew it, I just couldn't listen to that old bastard when he told me not to let the Air family into the Society, no, I had to stick the damn sword through his heart." Everyone in the limo stared at Kushi, scooting just a little further from him after he said this, he noticed them scooting away and explained, "I'm talking about the King before me, prior to my killing him, he told me some rules to being King, and one of the things he advised me about, was to not let the Air family into the Society, and of course I didn't listen, my God, I really am an idiot." he finished smacking his head against the window of the limo.

"Zhuul-san, it's not like you could have known about the Air family."

"No, I should have, even Liadán, told me not to let the Air family into the Society, why even Aibfinnia knew not to trust them," Kushi sighed, "I really am nothing but a stupid little king." And he refused to speak again, and merely exited the car, with the unconscious Kushi in his arms, when it stopped easily entered the house, completely prepared when the course went off and glided through it far too easily.

Hakim was a bit surprised when he found Lawr passing by his security room, but even more so when he saw his eyes were red and his grandson was in his arms, still unconscious.

"Well, I should hope that whatever reason you give me for this is an extremely good one." Hakim replied, rather calmly, considering that he knew this Lawr was not really Lawr and could already tell his grandson had been knocked out with tranquilizer.

Kushi could only stare in a somewhat confused face at the slightly red eyed man, whom he recognized as one of his past reincarnations, who for one reason or another; he had left before he was supposed to, and that little thing had always confused him, but he had decided not to pay too much attention to it. That was when the rest of the Host Club finally made it through the already set off traps to where Hakim was calmly questioning the Lawr that was actually the reincarnated Kushi that was his ancestor.

Haruhi then took on the task of explaining since Kushi was unsure of how to do so himself.

Hakim then sighed before walking to the kitchen, saying rather calmly as he did, "Sekhmet, get dinner for ten ready, and also, our grandson is not our ancestor's reincarnation, but his boyfriend is."

"I already knew that, it's obvious to me that instead our grandson is the reincarnation of a girl, not a man." Sekhmet replied, just as calmly, even though everyone else, minus the Lawr that wasn't really Lawr, was surprised.

Hakim merely huffed, "Well of course you would know." he retorted, and mumbled under his breath, "Spiritual freak."

"Yes, spiritual freak that is cooking your dinner with poisons right next to the spices." she told him.

"Anyways, allow us to explain in more detail." Hakim told the rest of the group, who were ready to finally get the full, complete story.


	22. Thought 22

"Would anyone like something to drink, tea, coffee, water?" Sekhmet asked, there was no reply, and she merely shrugged her shoulders before returning to the kitchen, leaving everyone else in the living room as she went to Kushi's room to check up on the unconscious boy.

Hakim behaved very calmly, preferring to merely sip at the tea that he had received prior to Sekhmet's question, as he sat on the couch, not even paying attention to any members of the Host Club, or his own great-great-great-great grandfather reincarnate. Finally he looked up from his tea and seeming as if though he was going to say something very important, he asked, "What were we talking about?"

"You were going to try and explain everything." Haruhi answered.

"Oh yes, well, as you should all already know, the Zhuul family hates the Air family, what almost everyone doesn't know, is this-" Hakim was interrupted by the doorbell, "Ah, excuse me, that must be Kazuka." and he raised himself from the chair to answer the door and soon walk by with Haruhi's teacher.

"Kazuka-sensei?" Haruhi asked, rather surprised that her teacher knew people that were art thieves.

"Oh, Fujioka-san, Zhuul, why was I not told that students from the school in which I work would be here?" Kazuka asked, glaring at Hakim.

"Hmm, must have slipped my mind, well, I suppose you should all know anyway, Kazuka here is actually the last of the Kazuka family, they were rather intelligent art thieves with special abilities, but were killed by some enemies, only reason Kazuka is alive is because he was elsewhere at the time of the attack, he is also a poison and spiritual expert, so he should be able to help Kushi regain consciousness."

"But whether he returns as Kushi or someone else I cannot guarantee, now, I must be off to help your grandson." and Sekhmet came and led Kazuka to Kushi's room.

"Now, where were we, oh yes, well, the Zhuul family and Air family hate each other more than needed because of what happened with this Kushi and the heir to the Air family at his time of life." Hakim continued, "They apparently fell in love or some such and both ended up dying, anyway, the thing is that apparently they were reincarnating themselves to try and find each other, I was supposed to have been Kushi's vessel in which he would finally awaken, but he didn't, instead he left somehow and entered an Air family member, rather strange that Air got a Zhuul and we got an Air, but, I suppose that's how things work." Hakim finished, taking another sip from his tea.

Sekhmet came into the room, "There are spiritual experts in the Society because some artworks are cursed." she said, answering an unasked question, "Also, there are about five faculty members who are a part of the Society in your school, in case you were curious."

Kazukasoon came into the room, "Well, obviously he's unconscious, but the sedative that the Air family gave him should have lasted only about a few hours, not a week like they told you, so instead he's actually speaking to a past life or wandering through memories, I don't really know, but he'll wake up when he wakes up I suppose." Kazuka told them, "Well, I've still got papers to grade, by the way Fujioka, you got a hundred on the past test, and tell Zhuul he got a ninety." and Sekhmet led him out of the room and showed him to the door.

"Well, how is our grandson?" Hakim asked Sekhmet.

"What Kazuka said was accurate, speaking to his other life and such." Sekhmet answered, "It's good to see that his studies did indeed pay off."

"Yes, well, I suppose you should all be heading home, you may stay, because, in a way, you are family, and I am sure you do not wish to return to your prior residence." Hakim said, directing the last of his comment to the Kushi that was in Lawr's body, who merely nodded in reply, still feeling rather out of place as he was led to a guest room, right next to the unconscious Kushi, and he lied there the whole night, completely awake.

...:_In Kushi's Mind:..._

I was seated in a rather nice, comfy, sort of bean bag chair, with tea and sandwiches set out on a small mat in front of me, in front of that, in another bean bag, sat a very pretty woman, whose name was Liadán, and whose shade of red hair and green eyes, automatically made me think of Lawr, although her polite mannerisms most certainly did not remind me of my red headed boyfriend.

"Would you like some more tea?" she asked, already pouring the tea, knowing that I would say yes, which wasn't too surprising considering that we were technically, kind of the same person.

"You know, most people would be kinda freaked out, knowing that they're unconscious and sipping tea while talking to one of their past lives in their mind." I commented, taking another bite of my sandwich, "And I don't think most guys would take too well to the idea of having been a girl in several past lives."

"That's because we don't question too many things, besides our love life." she answered, and we sighed in exasperation at the exact same time, knowing that this was completely true, "I guess that's what got me killed." she added.

"And it's what almost got me killed." I continued, and then asked, "So I'm guessing that all this chat was prelude to something you wanted to ask me?"

"Yes actually." she answered and looked hopefully at me, "I want to see Kushi again."

* * *

crazy: Yeah, if you couldn't already tell by my total lack of update, I have either been very busy with having a life(total, huge, fat _lie_), or I have just had no inspiration whatsoever to continue writing this story, which is mainly why there has been no updates. Sorry if I'm both rude and blunt, but you guys don't really inspire me, and yeah at first when I started writing this series, I looked forward to it because it was fun to write and stuff, but now the fun has worn off, and the fact that next to no one tells me if they actually like the story or not doesn't really help either. I know I probably seem mean, passing the blame to you wonderful readers, but if you write stories yourself, then you know just how much even one freaking comment can inspire you to finish a story, which I was very close to doing before the horrid writer's block of... well, blockness, attacked. Since the last time I updated, I only got one review, in like early April, I can't run on the motivation of one review forever, although to that one reviewer, hiruma-devil, thank you very much, you have earned yourself a virtual cookie if you are reading this, take it *hands hiruma-devil cookie of their preference*.

Then there's also the fact that apparently, I'm writing, wow, sixty two other stories all at the same time, because if an idea for a story comes to me, then I have to write it or suffer the blockage that it creates. I do not in anyway advocate writing so many stories all at the same time, it is a **_very, very bad idea_**, trust me. Many of these stories will never see the light of day, but that's their fate as unblockers.

So yeah anyway, there's that, and my insomniac tendencies have been getting worse now, I usually take anywhere between half an hour to three hours to get to sleep, yesterday I woke up at one thirty pm, I have not slept since before I awoke yesterday. Funny thing is, the night before last, I went to sleep at almost the exact same time as last night and I still fell asleep before or around five, where as last night, I ate no Nerds before bed, but still had no sleepy bye time. This sort of thing has been going on all my life, my mom says that as a baby, she would sometimes get up in the middle of the night to do something, and she would find me in the corner of my crib rocking calmly and wide awake. We're thinking that I should probably get some medication to help with my sleeping problems. Big Idea: Insomnia = no fun for person who never had it before at an age where they can remember it

But anyway, enough of my problems, have a happy Fourth of July, if you celebrate it, if you don't, well, enjoy the fireworks anyway, and if there are no fireworks, then stop ruining my little goodbye sequences, gosh, have a nice summer, there.


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